Road to the Apocalypse
by ficlicious
Summary: An archangel with holes in his memory. A demon-haunted hunter. A man freshly returned from hell. An angel of the Lord struggling to find his way. The Devil trying to break free. They just might be doomed.
1. Beginning is the End is the Beginning

**Title**: Road to the Apocalypse (1/10)  
**Author**: **ficlicious**  
**Rating**: Mature/R  
**Pairing**: Sam/Gabriel, Dean/Castiel  
**Warnings**: Explicit Language, Slash. Violence. Angst. Wings.  
**Spoilers**: General Season 4. Season 5, up to "Hammer of the Gods"  
**Disclaimer**: I'm not making any money from this. Kripke just makes awesome toys.  
**Characters**: Sam, Gabriel, God, Dean, Castiel, Ruby, Raphael, Assorted Angels, Others  
**Genres**: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, Spiritual  
**Word Count**: ~1,300

**Summary**: An archangel with holes in his memory. A demon-haunted hunter. A man freshly returned from hell. An angel of the Lord struggling to find his way. The Devil trying to break free. They just might be doomed.

**Author's Notes**: Sequel to "To Weather Any Storm", second in the Darkness before Dawn series. This chapter is pretty much "Lazarus Rising" (S4E01) remixed with "The End" (S5E04). Lines of dialogue cribbed directly from the episode are italicized. Chapter title taken from the Smashing Pumpkins song of the same name.

=0=

_Some say there are as myriad themes as there are stories. Some say there are only three themes: man versus man, man versus environment, man versus himself. But the truth is somewhat simpler, and can be summed up in a single word._

_Why._

_Because really, behind every story is a search for the truth. The truth of who we are, where we come from, why we're here. Why does the sun come up? Why are there rainbows? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do we keep going, keep hoping, even in the face of certain doom?_

_I know people who say endings are the worst, because it all has to lead somewhere, plots have to be resolved, subplots tied up without leaving dangling threads. All neat, prettily packaged like a birthday present wrapped professionally at the store. But I find beginnings are the worst. You have to set the stage, introduce the characters, bring in elements of the main plot. Beginnings have to hook your readers, snatch at their interest and keep them turning pages, keep them caring.._

_Beginnings are the worst because, if they're not done right, everything just falls apart._

=0=

**The Beginning is the End is the Beginning**

"Dean, don't do this."

Sam's voice was quiet, broken, pleading. Tinny across the miles bridged by the cell connection. It didn't even sound like his brother. That made it a hell of a lot easier to squeeze his eyes shut, steel his nerves and say "Bye Sam," before snapping the phone shut and settling back into an uneasy sleep.

When he woke up, the small but vibrant town he'd pulled into hours before was a shattered wreck haunted by the ghosts of rusted-out cars and graffiti tags of vanished gangs.

=0=

Future Dean was a dick and a half. He was cold, ruthless and utterly humorless. A hard man, hard enough that John Winchester could only have dreamed of emulating him. Even the recollection of Rhonda Hurley and her pink satin panties didn't do more than make him smirk faintly. He also liked to touch his guns a bit much. Dean was one for weapons, and had whiled away many hours in the car devising new places to hide entire arsenals, but Future Dean _really _liked his guns. He kept touching them, caressing them, like they were the only thing standing between him and certain death.

Gratned, given the times, Dean could see why Future Dean might think that way. That didn't make it less unsettling though.

With very ltitle subterfuge, Dean turned the conversation to Sam, which effectively chased off Future Dean. Dean didn't buy this excuse of "errands to run"; he'd used that one before, when he wanted to avoid talking about a subject.

"I got a camp full of twitchy trauma survivors out there with an apocalypse hanging over their head. The last thing they need to see is a version of _The Parent Trap_."

On that note, Future Dean departed, leaving Dean handcuffed to a pipe. Dean looked around, besmused and somewhat incredulous. "Dick," he said.

"You're only now figuring that out, Dean-o?"

Dean was getting sick of people getting the drop on him, but at least this time, he wasn't getting hit with angel mojo or a crowbar. He didn't think his head could take much more of either of those. The voice should have tipped him off, as the Trickster came sliding out of the shadows, eyes bright and patented smirk in place.

"I should have known," Dean snarled, instinct driving him to look around for a stick. Fucker had it coming, after all the nightmares this asshole had given Sam. And, he supposed, for what he'd done to Dean himself, even if Dean couldn't remember any of it. "Nice impression of Zachariah. You really got the douchery down. Had me fooled but good."

The Trickster spread his hands with a shrug. "Wish I could take credit," he said. "Really, I do. It's a fairly masterful bit of hocus-pocus. But even I'm not twisted enough to come up with something quite like this. No, that's all Zachariah." He grinned. "It's always the quiet ones."

Dean snorted, tugging uselessly on the handcuff. Nope, still solid. "Yeah, right. You get your rocks off on this kind of crap as a day job."

"Not these days," the Trickster said with uncharacteristic solemnity, and shook a pair of bracelets out from the sleeves of his jacket. They glittered in the dim light, far too brightly, and seemed to glow with an unearthly white radiance.

Dean squinted, then blinked. He'd seen those sigils before. Drawn in blood. Painted with acrylic. Laid on a page in black ink in one of Bobby's books. Symbols to bind and contain immensely powerful beings. "Is that—"

"Enochian?" The Trickster's eyebrow went up in just that smug, condescending expression that always made Dean want to break his teeth. "Good on you, Dean. And they say the American education system is failing."

"You're an angel." If anything was going to break his disbelief about this whole scenario, it was that. "No friggin' way."

"Guilty."

Okay, fine. He'd play along. "So which one are you? Sneezy, Grumpy, or Douchey?"

The Trickster smiled a weird little smile, almost like he was remembering something with great fondness. "Gabriel," he said. "They call me Gabriel."

If he'd whipped out a hammer and smashed Dean over the head with it, he couldn't have been more stunned. "The archangel?"

The Trickster—Gabriel—nodded. "The last time we had this conversation," he said, "it involved a ring of fire and three hundred television channels. Don't worry," he added, when Dean opened his mouth. "You'll see when you get there. But trust me, it was a hoot."

"Yeah, I think I'll pass, thanks." He flicked his eyes back and forth between the bracelets, glowing with magic, to Gabriel, waiting patiently with that funny look on his face. "How the hell did you get here?"

Gabriel blew out an explosive breath, and all the piss and vinegar drained out of him. "That," he said tiredly, "is a very long story I have absolutely zero intention of getting into now. But to sum up: Future You is a massive dick, my baby brother a drugged-out traitor, and I was in the wrong place, worst time."

Dean arched an eyebrow. "You're saying Cas helped trap you?"

"Helped? Dean, it was all his idea to begin with. See, when his mojo started going south, he tapped into that great well of knowledge without the experience to use it, and had you—the other you—whip together a summoning spell. The rest, as they say, is history."

"So… what? What's the point?"

Gabriel whistled. "The facts really just go right over your head, don't they? Maybe I should rethink my congratulations of the public school system. Let me try again, using small words." Dean bristled, but bit back the comment rising in his throat. Maybe this was all one of Zachariah's choose-your-own-adventure mind fucks, but maybe he could get something useful out of the deal for if—when, _when_—he got out of it.

"I'm not just an angel, Dean. I'm an archangel, which is a whole other level of badassery. Castiel can do some pretty goddamned impressive things if he thinks about them hard enough." Gabriel paused, making sure Dean was still listening. Like he'd miss a word, even if he intended on taking them with a grain of salt. A _tiny_ grain of salt. "I don't even have to think about doing them. It's whimsy to me. If it strikes my fancy, it's done."

Dean thought he could see Future Dean's thought processes now. "So you're what, a WMD?"

"Pretty much." Gabriel plopped down on the floor beside him, stretching back with his hands behind his head. He might have been at the beach soaking up the sun for how concerned he looked with his predicament. "A WMD with hefty ties with the heavyweight on the other side." Gabriel tsked at Dean's frown. "Lucifer? As in, Lucifer the _archangel_? You know, my _brother_?"

Dean forced a smile. "Right. The other side has a pet angel, and now, so do we."

Gabriel shot him a look. "_Arch_angel. There's a difference. I'm a game-changer, baby. I'm a wild card."

There was _something _in his tone. Dean still wasn't convinced all of this was legit, but he was starting to believe. "Zachariah doesn't know you're here, does he?"

Gabriel looked pleased. If he reached out to pat Dean on the head like a clever puppy, Dean would bite his fingers off. "Ah, Zachariah. Good old Zachariah. Solid sort, but completely middle management. Who I am, what I am and, more importantly, _where _I am and what I know, is eternally above his pay grade." Gabriel sat up, looping his hands around his knees. "So listen up, Dean-o. This is how it is: mistakes were made. By you, by me, by the whole clusterfuck of angelic idiots floating around on their clouds. And what we have here is a whisper-thin chance to set them right."

"How?"

Gabriel smirked. "You'll like this part. You get to give me a well-deserved asskicking."

Dean was liking the sound of this more and more with every passing second. "I'm listening," he said.

Gabriel's eyes danced. "Thought that'd get your attention." Before Dean could say no, or at least request dinner and wine first, Gabriel poked him in the forehead with two fingers, and Dean's mind was suddenly flooded with chaotic fragments, the director's cut of Gabriel's memories in HD, surround sound.

_Lilith light Sam pain Gabriel with wings Sam despondent Gabriel desperate a prayer in the void of space "Gabriel!" Raphael the garrison hope joy fear rage Dean crawls out of hell "I've got genital herpes" witches and demons and angels poking their noses everywhere Adam and Michael and Zachariah and Lucifer breaking free and gods feasting as they try to avert the apocalypse and angel blades and the prophet Chuck and Castiel and Uriel and Jo Ellen Bobby making a deal Crowley the Colt and three hundred channels and nothing's on four Horsemen and Luciferluciferlucifer_

_Ow. OW. OW!_

Dean slapped Gabriel's hand away from his forehead, reeling backwards with the same kind of drunkenness only a serious bender could give him. Gabriel's face swam in and out, doubles and triples. It must have been the lack of focus, but he could swear Gabriel looked concerned.

"You okay there, Dean?"

Dean grunted, trying and failing twice to sit back up. He finally managed it, but the migraine was killing him. "Next time," he ground out, "I'd like a New York sirloin and a bottle of merlot before you bone me."

"Zachariah's going to take you back sooner or later," Gabriel said. "When he does, you take all that back with you and you _fix this_."

He could only make sense of half of the information Gabriel downloaded into his brain, but there was one big problem that he could see. "How do you expect me to pull that off? Half of this happened before Zachariah popped me here."

Gabriel's grin was sudden and sharp, more than a little unhinged. It came to Dean suddenly, the creeping horror of realization that maybe the intervening five years hadn't been very kind to the archangel's sanity. "I told you, Dean," he said in a very self-satisfied tone, "I'm a wild card. A game changer. I freaking angel of mass disruption. He thinks he's going to pull you back to 2009, but he's wrong. You'll go back. To the beginning. To all of it. I'm counting on you, Dean-o, and believe me, if you knew our history? You'd be laughing."

Dean cleared his throat. "We're not going to have a chick moment, are we? Because that would be uncomfortable."

"Oh, Dean," Gabriel said with a laugh. "I'd say _never change_, but that would defeat the entire purpose of this whole little endeavor, wouldn't it?" He brought his hand back up, and flicked Dean right in the center of the forehead. "Nighty night."

Dean didn't even have time to protest before he promptly forgot all about Gabriel.

=0=

Dean Winchester woke up in a pine box, and spent a frantic few minutes clawing his way out of his own grave. At first, he was convinced this was some new horror, a fresh torment devised uniquely for him and, as he stared around at the shattered glade, he waited for the demons to start popping out of the woodwork. Eventually, he picked a direction and started walking, still half-expecting for the rules of the game to change, reality to warp, and a new scene of mental purgatory to melt out of the countryside.

Even after he hotwired a car and fled the tiny, abandoned store shattered by whatever the _hell _that had been, he had a hard time believing he was free.

It wasn't until he laid eyes on Bobby, and later Sam, when locks turned in their tumblers, connections latched back into place, and he allowed himself to feel something he hadn't in what seemed like years: hope.

=0=

When Sam opened the door and there was Dean - _really Dean because Bobby vouched for him and Bobby never vouched for anything he wasn't one-hundred percent certain about _– Sam didn't know what to think. He wanted to believe it was true, especially since Bobby was there, standing beside his brother, but it was such an insane thing, such an unfathomable fact he stopped thinking and reverted to pure instinct: he pulled his silver blade, and went for the kill.

Bobby caught his arms and shoved him back. "I already been through this! It's him! It's _really_ him!" If Bobby's hands hadn't been so tight on his arms, Sam might well have collapsed.

Eventually, the trip-hammer of _fearhaterageangerhopejoydisb elief _surging through his head gave way to pure relief, and the knife fell from his nerveless fingers. Dean was solid in his arms, warm and real and Sam closed his eyes and just hugged his brother, relieved beyond words that he'd found some way out of the Pit.

Relief gave way to sullenness and guilt, as the accusations came. On some level, the suspicion from both Bobby and Dean was almost welcome, because it was _normal_. They always thought he was up to something and, truth be told, if he had been on the other side, he'd probably be right there throwing accusations at Dean.

Because Dean was right. If Sam hadn't done it – and he wished to God he had, but he _hadn't_ – t what _did_?

=0=

Gabriel froze for one long, exquisite moment as the rush of foreign emotions tumbled through the missing piece of his memory he'd long-since given up trying to explain. After weeks of poking and prodding, he reverted to pretending it didn't exist. He was pretty good at pretending with centuries of practice under his belt, good enough to convince even himself that it didn't bother him.

He waited another moment, but whatever it had been was gone before he could begin to unravel it. He shrugged and nodded briefly to the dealer, who tossed two more cards face-down on the table in front of him. He tapped them with a finger for a moment, switching them with the cards he wanted. Because honestly, what good was being an all-powerful archangel pretending to be a demigod if you couldn't abuse your powers to cheat your ass off?

Gabriel smiled as he slotted the cards into his hand. He glanced up at the other players, making a show at trying to puzzle them out. He knew what hands they had, of course he did, but if there was one thing he really enjoyed, it was how congratulatory humans got when they thought they had one over on him.

The Frenchman had a three tens, not a bad hand normally, but the game hadn't been going his way thus far tonight. His nose twitched almost imperceptibly, a sure sign of his nervousness and uncertainty. The woman in the red dress, a bombshell blonde, had a truly shitty hand with a pair of deuces, but she knew how to bluff her way into winning a pot. A cool, unflappable character whom Gabriel fully intended to bang into a mattress when the game was done. The English bloke was erratic as lightning, had the best hand barring Gabriel's, and his thoughts moved in such strange patterns even Gabriel had trouble reading him from time to time. He was also brilliant at dissembling and detecting deception, one of the best Gabriel had ever seen. Barring himself, of course.

Gabriel thumbed his cards apart, smirking. He flipped a ten kay chip into his free hand and opened his mouth to drawl something appropriately witty when there was a sudden wrench and that well of emptiness in his head filled up with _guilt_ and _fear _so breathtakingly sharp, it was impossible to ignore.

The chip clattered to the tabletop, and the cards slipped out of his fingers. "Fold," he muttered, attention on and interest in the game already vanishing like fog in sun. Without another word, he stood up and left the room.

The four other people at the table glanced at each other and then at Gabriel's abandoned hand. Silently, the dealer flipped them over, revealing a royal flush. They all shared another look. Then the dealer swept Gabriel's chips into the pot, and the game continued without him.


	2. Torn Between Scylla and Charybdis

**Title**: Road to the Apocalypse (2/10)  
**Author**: **ficlicious**  
**Rating**: Mature/R  
**Pairing**: Sam/Gabriel, Dean/Castiel  
**Warnings**: Explicit Language, Slash. Violence. Angst. Wings.  
**Spoilers**: General Season 4. Season 5, up to "Hammer of the Gods"  
**Disclaimer**: I'm not making any money from this. Kripke just makes awesome toys.  
**Characters**: Sam, Gabriel, God, Dean, Castiel, Ruby, Raphael, Assorted Angels, Others  
**Genres**: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, Spiritual  
**Word Count**: 2,664

**Summary**: An archangel with holes in his memory. A demon-haunted hunter. A man freshly returned from hell. An angel of the Lord struggling to find his way. The Devil trying to break free. They just might be doomed.

**Author's Notes**: This installment takes place during the events of "Lazarus Rising" and immediately following "Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean Winchester", leading into the opening scenes of "In the Beginning". Title is from the Trivium song of the same name.

=0=

Dean stared at the mirror, almost unable to recognize the man staring back at him. His eyes were bloodshot (_flesh flayed from his bones)_, dark circles shadowing them (_blood, so much blood and oh, the screaming)_, and his cheeks were hollow with exhaustion. It was a stranger reflected there, the spectre of hell lurking in the lines of his face, the set of his mouth.

He squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing them with the finger and thumb of his right hand. He turned around, sagging back against the cracked countertop, unable to look at himself in the mirror anymore. Not that he minded being out of Hell, but he wished he knew why he was out and, more importantly, who had pulled him out.

He turned back to the mirror and pulled the neck of his shirt down over his shoulder. The vividness of the handprint had faded somewhat, from the angry scarlet to a duller, healing pink. Nothing in the lore said anything about creatures able to dredge the Pit and haul out souls, but Bobby and Sam were still looking. It looked human, the handprint, but that didn't mean anything. Lots of things looked human. Lots of things wore human skins like condoms.

He ran his fingers over the raised welts. It should hurt, it looked so much like a burn, but it didn't. He didn't know what it felt like, but it wasn't pain. It was cool, almost soothing. He stared at it for a long moment, wishing like hell he knew what it meant.

Movement behind his shoulder. The Trickster stepped out from behind him, smirking. "Castiel," he said, voice echoing oddly.

Dean whirled, pulling the knife at the small of his back and swinging it up into an overhand position. There was no Trickster behind him. He glanced back at the mirror, wide-eyed, but the Trickster's reflection was gone.

He was alone in the bathroom.

When his heart rate was in some semblance of normal, Dean pulled his shirt clear of the brand again. "Castiel," he muttered, trying it out. The name resonated, deep down in some unidentifiable place inside him. It sounded right.

Dean let the shirt slide back up his shoulder, hiding the brand from sight again. He set both hands on the counter and leaned forward to examine his reflection again. "Castiel," he said again and yeah, it sounded exactly right.

It was a lead. A slender one, but still a lead.

=0=

Dean was uncomfortable with the séance right from the start. It began as a nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach, ramping up into near panic as soon as Pamela touched the brand on his arm. It felt like invasion, like violation and, even though Pamela wasn't doing anything but touching his arm, he really wanted her to stop. It took all he had not to shake her fingers away from his crawling skin.

"I invoke, conjure and command you, appear unto me before this circle." Pamela repeated it, her voice falling into an easy cadence as she worked her magic. On a normal day, it would have been hypnotic, but Dean was wound tighter than he'd ever been, and it was all he could do not to fidget in the chair.

Bobby and Sam looked just as uncertain as he felt, but neither of them said a word. Dean knew they wanted answers just as much as he did, wanted to know what new horror they were dealing with, what world-ending bullshit was coming down on their heads.

_This is a bad idea._

"I invoke, conjure and command you, appear unto me before this circle." Pamela's head canted to the side. "Castiel?"

Dean jumped, gaze flying to Pamela.

The psychic looked smug, stubborn. "No. Sorry, Castiel, I don't scare easily."

Dean's voice shook. "Castiel?"

Without opening her eyes, Pamela turned to Dean. "Its name. It's whispering to me, warning me to turn back."

The television flickered to life. The table started to shake. Pamela's voice rose, demanding, commanding Castiel to show her its face. Dishes rattled in the cupboards. Bobby and Sam looked as spooked as he'd ever seen them.

The Trickster stood behind Pamela, shaking his head slowly, eyes full of sorrow and resignation.

"Stop. Stop!" Dean tried to jerk his arm free, but Pamela's fingers clamped down like iron around his shoulder.

"I almost got it. I invoke, conjure and command you! Show me your face!"

The candles flared and Pamela's eyes lit up like the Fourth of July. The scent of burning flesh filled the air, and Pamela screamed.

=0=

Gabriel manifested in a motel room decorated with hearts and tacky gold wallpaper. A hole-in-the-wall rent-by-the-hour kind of place, from the look and smell of it. He liked it already. It was just his style.

The bed was rumpled, trash full of empty take-out bags and shreds of newspaper. He snapped his fingers and the paper flashed back into wholeness, floating in front of him. He plucked it out of the air, smoothing it out.

A clipping cut from a local edition, dated several days back. Some mumbo-jumbo about weird weather that, to the uneducated eye, would seem like just another mood swing of Mother Nature. Gabriel smirked as he crumpled the page and tossed it back into the can. "Hunters." It never ceased to amaze him exactly what patterns sharp human minds could pull from disconnected reports of grave disturbances, weird lights and quirky weather.

Still, that wasn't why he was here.

He wasn't sure why he popped in here, as opposed to the thing that had drawn his attention to begin with, but this was the first lead he had on what had gouged out a chunk of his mind. He could work with this. "Alright," he said, and rubbed his hands together briskly. "Let's see what's what."

He extended one hand, fingers spread. Around him, time froze and slowly began to rewind. Shadows of bodies moved through the room, ghosts of what had been. Streamers of color unwound before his eyes. He flicked two fingers, and the ribbons resolved into human forms.

He frowned at them. One was vaguely familiar, a dark-haired man. The older dude, he was pretty sure he'd never seen. The last two, a tall lanky figure and the smaller woman, were too blurred by demonic darkness to make out features. He paced around them, hand absently moving to fine-tune the image, but it refused to sharpen.

A flare of power from somewhere east of him drew his attention like a whip crack. Gabriel snapped his head up, peering at the ceiling. He knew that sensation, even if he hadn't felt it in eons. An angel was moving, and far too close for his liking. Witness protection only worked if one kept one's head down.

He'd figure this all out later. The afterimage dissolved into nothing. With a sound like a flapping of wings, he was gone.

=0=

Alistair froze, standing with dead eyes and an arm partially raised. The whip hung in mid-air, droplets of blood and gobbets of flesh suspended beneath it. Dean, braced for the blow he _knew _was coming, stared in disbelief. What the hell?

The Trickster stepped out around Alistair and Dean knew then that he was dreaming.

"You," he hissed, straining at the straps binding him to the rack. Even knowing it was a dream didn't make them less tight. "Get the hell out of my head. I've got enough crap in here already without you junking it up."

The Trickster tutted. "Dean, Dean, Dean. I thought we had an understanding."

His muscles bulged with the effort of breaking free, protesting at the demands he was putting on them. Head trip or not, it fucking hurt. "We have an understanding, alright. I understand that the minute I get loose, I'm going to kill you."

The Trickster waved a hand at Dean. "Of course you will," he said indulgently, circling Alistair with an arched eyebrow. "Of course, you'd only be hurting yourself but I'm pretty sure you'd like that."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You have a masochistic streak a mile wide, Dean." The Trickster crossed his arms, standing beside Alistair. He reached up and patted the demon on the arm. "Or do you need me to turn Huggy Bear here back on to refresh your memory?"

Dean snarled wordlessly and turned his attention back to freeing himself from the rack.

"Let me help you with that." There was a snap, and Dean was quite suddenly seated at a diner table, wound-free, pain-free, drowning in confusion.

Dean wished he wasn't getting so used to being bounced around like a friggin' ping-pong ball, but it was becoming the sad reality of his life. If it wasn't some demon in the body of his grandfather throwing him across the room, it was some angel dropping him in the past without warning. "Where the hell are we?"

The Trickster grinned and pointed at the wall behind Dean. He glanced back. There was a menu on the wall, listing the weekly specials. His stomach sank. "Tuesday," he said, toneless. "Pig in a poke."

"Oh, don't look so worried." The Trickster leaned on his elbows. "It's not _that _Tuesday. Besides, we're in your head. Nothing happens here unless you want it to."

"If that were true, you wouldn't be here."

The Trickster gave Dean a look like he couldn't believe the stupidity. "I'm a part of you, dumbass," he said. "But I forget. You forgot." The hand came up, the fingers snapped.

_WingsangelswordSamindangerfi ghtingfallinggoldenwingsburn ingfireGabriel_

Dean reeled back, slapping a hand to the side of his head as his brain tried to crawl out through his temple."Son of a bitch!"

"Better?"

If looks could kill, Gabriel would be a smudge on the linoleum. "No!"

"Hey, don't blame me." Gabriel laced his fingers together and made a show of putting them behind his head. "I'm just a figment of your imagination. You're in control here, Dean-o."

Cautiously, Dean withdrew his hand from the side of his head expecting to see blood. He dabbed at his ear and under his nose, but his fingertips were clean. "What the hell, man?"

Gabriel shrugged, looking unconcerned. "Sack up, you big baby. You've been through worse."

Dean sighed. "What do you want, Gabriel?"

"The excrement is hitting the rotary oscillator, Dean. The Witnesses were just the first in a long string of hurt coming down. You need to get me in the game. Hella fast."

Dean rolled his eyes. "And how do I go about that? You aren't exactly known for your team-playing attitude."

Gabriel grinned. "I'm sure you'll come up with something. But if you want a hint, I'd start with Jegudiel."

"Ye-who-diel?"

"Jegudiel. One of my brothers. We were close. He can find me, and I can tell you how to find him."

Great. More feathered dickwads running around in his life. Because the one in the trenchcoat with the grabby hands and the short asshole lurking in his head just _wasn't _enough. "Your brother." Gabriel nodded. "Another archangel." Gabriel nodded again. "And how do you expect me to convince him to help?"

Gabriel's eyes glittered darkly. "He owes me. Tell him I'm calling in his marker for Jericho."

=0=

Sam eased the door shut behind him, not daring to breathe until the latch had clicked. He leaned against the door for a long moment, letting out the breath he'd been holding in one long rush of air. Not for the first time, he wondered what the hell he was doing. He was jaunting off in the middle of the night, sneaking out of the house like a kid with a curfew, to meet up with Ruby.

Sam couldn't help the stab of guilt; it felt like an utter betrayal of Dean who had been more of a parent to him than a sibling. Their father disappeared frequently and without warning, leaving the boys to fend for themselves as best they could. Dean had taken the responsible role, and Sam had looked up to him. Even a year ago, he wouldn't have dreamed of doing something this… this… He didn't even have a word for it. Though "stupid" came pretty close.

He slid into the Impala, still conflicted. He rested his forehead against the steering wheel and just breathed for a few minutes. When he had started all this, it was out of desire for revenge. Lilith had killed his brother, so Lilith would pay if it was the last thing Sam ever did. He had thrown himself into Ruby's plan with nary a second thought. Lilith had killed his brother, so Lilith would pay. Simple. Direct.

And then Dean was back. Sure, Lilith was still roaming around, but now so were angels, if Castiel was any indication. Things had blown up rapidly, leaving Sam floundering, grasping for reasons. If angels, and ostensibly God, were back and active in the world, did he even need to go out hunting demons down anymore? And if he didn't, then what the hell was he doing?

Truth be told, he really didn't know anymore.

Sam scratched at his left wrist, which was itching like crazy. It had been doing that a lot of late, especially when he started having second thoughts about his current plan of action. Sometimes, he thought he could see something there in the corner of his eye, a glitter of curves and swirls that raised itself out of his flesh and vanished when he looked directly at it. Maybe an angel had touched him too.

Sam smirked, darkly and to himself. It was a nice fairy tale, but _yeah, right_. The boy with demon blood. The boy fucking the demon girl. The boy with the spooky psychic powers and the lack of impulse control when it came to using them. What angel in his right mind would want to come near him, let alone touch him?

With a final sigh, Sam squared his shoulders, started the car, and drove off to his usual meeting spot with Ruby.

=0=

Castiel stood over Dean, frowning as he watched the human sleep. He was unquestioningly loyal to God, obeying the edicts of his direct superiors without second thought, but he was having trouble puzzling out the reasons behind their commands of late.

He had had vague concerns when he'd been dispatched from Heaven to pull Dean Winchester out of the Pit, to grip him tight and raise him from Perdition, but he hadn't thought to question. He did as he was told, went to Earth and claimed Jimmy Novak as his vessel, as he was told. He spoke to Dean, as he was told. Because God had a Plan, and he did as God commanded.

But watching Dean had crystallized those vague concerns into questions, and those questions had been brought sharply into focus by the breaking of the second Seal and the Rising of the Witnesses. He had always thought Heaven wished to avoid the Apocalypse, as it would only result in wide scale devastation and massive loss of life.

So why, then, had he not been dispatched _before _Dean Winchester broke on Alistair's rack? Why had he not been commanded to save Dean before the first Seal on Lucifer's prison shattered?

Jimmy had been – was – a devout man, but he was a man of the world. Not nearly as innocent as Castiel. Perhaps it was only his influence. His voice whispering in his ear. His need to know answers. Humans questioned, it was what they did. How they were made.

Yes, that must be it. He was unused to human emotions, human thought processes. He would have to learn to adapt to Jimmy's presence and Jimmy's questions within their shared body. Castiel shook his head and, with it, his concerns. He was an angel of the Lord, a loyal soldier of God. He did not question. And he had his orders.

He reached for Dean's shoulder.


	3. Phantoms and Fires On the Road

**Title**: Road to the Apocalypse (2/10)  
**Author**: **ficlicious**  
**Rating**: Mature/R  
**Pairing**: Sam/Gabriel, Dean/Castiel  
**Warnings**: Explicit Language, Slash. Violence. Angst. Wings.  
**Spoilers**: General Season 4. Season 5, up to "Hammer of the Gods"  
**Disclaimer**: I'm not making any money from this. Kripke just makes awesome toys.  
**Characters**: Sam, Gabriel, God, Dean, Castiel, Ruby, Raphael, Assorted Angels, Others  
**Genres**: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, Spiritual  
**Word Count**: 2,710

**Summary**: An archangel with holes in his memory. A demon-haunted hunter. A man freshly returned from hell. An angel of the Lord struggling to find his way. The Devil trying to break free. They just might be doomed.

**Author's Notes**: Scenes take place during "Metamorphosis" and "It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester" and post- "Yellow Fever" (which was _awesome_ to rewatch, might I add). Lines from this stretch of episodes have either been taken wholecloth, or paraphrased to fit the narrative.

Originally, things tracked along very closely to the main plot, but Team Free Will is trying to skew things off here and now, long before Lucifer pops out of his hole. As I learned with TWAS, sometimes it's best to just let the boys have their say. My AU Season 4 from here on out will, with a few exceptions, bear only passing resemblance to the original story. After here, scene rewrites and missing moments are done. My outline has been hunted, salted, burned and scattered to the four winds. I'm flying with the angels here now. Wish me luck.

Title of this chapter taken from the lyrics of Leonard Cohen, "The Future".

**Phantoms and Fires on the Road**

Nothing burned as honestly as digging a grave.

Dean hoisted himself out of the hole, stabbed the shovel into the ground, and pulled a handkerchief to swipe the sweat from his forehead. He rested a wrist on the end of the handle as he caught his breath. Everything hurt; his arms, his legs, his back, but especially his heart.

"Travis was a good man," he said.

Sam looked up from where he was digging his end of the grave, then slowly straightened. "Yeah," he said, sounding only half-convinced. "He was."

Dean circled the wooden shaft with his fingers, looking down at the ground. "I've been hard on you lately," he said. When he looked back up, Sam was staring at him with an open, thoughtful expression that Dean never thought he'd be so glad to see. Sam's face these days was more shuttered off, closed up, than it was open and honest. "I just want to say I'm sorry. But your, uh, psychic thing? Scares the crap out of me."

Sam sighed and pulled himself out of the hole. "I'm done with them," he said, so unexpectedly Dean nearly got whiplash from snapping his head around. Sam raised an eyebrow. "I mean it, Dean. They're like playing with fire. So I'm done with them. I'll—" He raised a hand in a half-shrug, and let his hand slap against his thigh when it fell back. "I'll just have to live with it. Somehow"

Dean wasn't quite sure what to say to that. It wasn't like he could relate to what Sam was going through; he didn't have demon blood in _him. _His experiences in Hell were also pretty fucked up, but in completely different ways. He opened his mouth to respond with something trite, like _I'll always be here for you, Sammy_ or _if you need to talk_… But Sam preempted him.

"If it's alright with you, I don't really want to talk about it anymore."

Yeah, it was more than fine with him. Dean nodded, set the shovel more firmly into the soil. He dusted off his hands and moved to the tarp-wrapped body of Travis. "Gimme a hand here," he said, leaning down to grab the feet.

Sam nodded and moved to help him. Together, they slung Travis' body in the grave and stood over, staring down at him. "Got the accelerant?" Dean asked, and Sam raised the canister.

In minutes, Travis was burning like a merry bonfire, while Dean and Sam sat on the hood of the Impala with a couple of longneck beers. Dean raised his bottle toward the blaze, just like he had done for far too fucking many hunters already. "Here's to you, Travis," he said. "Hope you find your rest."

Sam tipped his bottle towards the fire, but remained silent. He took a long swig. "What do you want to do about Michelle?" he asked.

Dean glanced at him sidelong, then took a drink of his own beer. "Don't see how we have to do anything about her," he said.

"She's pregnant, Dean. With another rougarou."

"And maybe the kid will grow up to be a vegetarian, into lettuce and soybeans and colonic purgatives," Dean replied, smiling at Sam's look of incredulity. "You were right about one thing, Sam. We don't kill because of what someone or something _might _do. We kill because of what they _have _done." _And sometimes not even then_, he amended mentally, thinking of the laundry list of things they'd had to let go for one reason or another. Top of the list was Sam.

Sam nodded slowly, looking impressed despite himself. "We'll keep an eye out."

"Yep. We'll keep an eye out."

Travis burned on, and the boys drank their beer feeling, for one moment, everything was just as it should be.

=0=

He had a mind full of phantoms. They blended into one another, until it was hard to pick out where one ended and the next began.

_"I have a camp full of twitchy trauma survivors and the last thing they need is going to end bloody for the Michael sword and you will always end up give it a three days and bad idea Lucifer's going to turn them into voice mail of I don't understand why do you want me to realized how long you've been cleaning up Dad's boys die more than anyone I see you in five years._"

Dean woke up with a scream trapped in his throat. For a long moment, he couldn't breathe, and flailed in panic until his brain caught up, kicked his lungs in the ass, and oxygen rushed in. He bent over, gulping air like he'd never breathe again. He pressed shaking fingers to his forehead, his other hand fisting and relaxing restlessly in the bed sheets. Goddamn, that had been a bad one. His dreams had always been craptastic, but since the ghost sickness that fucking buruburu decided he deserved, they had really taken the crapcake. With an extra side of crapsauce.

He slid out of bed, not even sure his legs would support his weight, but they did. He stood and paced to the window in his boxers, standing in the illumination of the street lamp outside. The street was empty, except for an old guy digging through trash cans further down. The Impala sat dark and silent in the lot below the door. No flickering lights, no cold spots, no high-pitched whine.

Nothing out of the ordinary, in other words.

"Sorry Dean," Gabriel said from behind him, and Dean whirled, his heart leaping in his throat.

"Dammit, man!" he hissed, clutching at his chest. "Don't _do _that."

Gabriel gave him a look and folded his arms. "How many times do we have to go through this? I'm. Not. Really. Here. I'm in your head."

Dean grunted something semi-profane in response and went to the small fridge, fishing out a cold beer from the depths. He cracked it open and tossed the cap, listening to it clink on the linoleum floor. "Thanks for that, by the way. Remind me to deep-fry your ass next time I see you."

Gabriel shrugged. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. There were safeguards. Trigger locks set to release at certain times, with certain events."

"Yeah?" Dean tipped the bottle back and swallowed a long draught of beer. It made him feel slightly better. "So why am I getting the highlight reel every time I close my friggin' eyes?"

"If I – and by _I _I mean _you_ – had to guess, I'd say it had something to do with the ghost sickness." Gabriel tsked. "Oh, don't look so confused. I'm _you_, dumbass. You know exactly what I'm talking about."

"So you're—I'm…" Dean closed his eyes and counted to five. This was too convoluted for the ass-crack of dawn. "The fear disease knocked a few screws loose?"

"Broke the programming, more like." Gabriel took a seat across the table from Dean. "All the stuff I jammed in your head was supposed to ease out, become accessible when it was needed." He looked proud of himself. "Which was just awesome of me, by the way. Not everyone could do that."

"Don't hero-worship yourself," Dean snapped. "It's creepy."

"You're hero-worshipping me, Dean-o. Remember?"

Dean rolled his eyes.

"Anyway, so things are all jumbled up in your head, and they're coming in no particular order now. The sickness wanted to scare the crap out of you, and it didn't care where it drew inspiration from."

"So how do I stop it?"

Gabriel leaned in, so close they were practically kissing. Dean inched back, not even wanting a phantasm that looked like the midget archangel in his personal space. "Get off your ass," Gabriel said seriously, "and do what I told you to do weeks ago."

=0=

Sam wasn't sure what he'd expected angels to be, but Castiel and Uriel certainly hadn't been it. If he thought about it, he would have expected them to radiate purity and innate goodness, yet they hadn't. Castiel had been almost condescending, and Uriel… Well, if there was a word for the impression Uriel left, it was _evil_. Trying to reconcile an angelic being with evilness was actively hurting Sam's mind. They were supposed to be the balance for darkness. _Werewolves _ate entire towns. _Vampires _drained or turned entire towns. _Demons _laid waste to entire towns.

Apparently, so did angels.

It made him feel a little better to know that Dean had at least been taken seriously aback by Castiel's judgement of the town. In fact, his brother had looked downright appalled that Castiel would even suggest such a thing.

_Angels are assholes, _Sam decided, absently scratching at the itchy spot on his wrist, before turning back to his books.

=0=

Sam left Dean in the mausoleum with a dozen rattling capstones, but he was trying not to think about that. He was trying not to think about the ghouls and zombies about to crawl out of their niches. He was trying not to think about what would happen if Dean got overwhelmed. Would he come back to find his brother's half-eaten corpse lying on the floor?

Better end this quickly, before that had a chance to happen.

Samhain was facing away from him, standing before stained glass windows in the mausoleum chapel. Sam didn't bother trying to hide his approach. The demon swung around with a murderous look, and white light washed over Sam. The itching in his wrist erupted into burning pain, and there was an echo of a voice in the air.

_You. Don't. Touch. Him. Ever._

For a brief moment, Sam thought he saw something outlined in the blinding light, a fiery figure with wings and a burning sword, hand outstretched in denial to the demon. But the light faded, and so did the figure and the echo ringing in his ears.

Leaving just him and Samhain.

"Yeah," he said, swallowing to wet his suddenly dry mouth, and forced himself to walk through the fading light. "The demon ray-gun? Doesn't work on me."

The look on Samhain's face was priceless.

=0=

Gabriel had been in multiple places at once. It was fun, most of the time, leaving a fragment of consciousness in a duplicate body while he stealthed to a new place from which to surprise whatever hapless victim he'd targeted.

This was the first time it had happened without his direct permission.

In the middle of pulling the mother of all pranks on a Ponzi scheme asshole, Gabriel got dizzy. He blinked and shook his head briskly, but the vertigo only increased. The hole in his head abruptly filled with _need _and _fear, _stretching into infinity. Abruptly, he was halfway elsewhere, full-on apocalyptic on some demon, standing between the thing of darkness and a human.

Only long experience and quick-wittedness kept him from fumbling the ball on the prank, kept his mouth running and his words on auto-pilot while he sat in the café with the con man. And speaking of auto-pilot, he was a passenger inside his other head as his wings exploded into being, his Sword sparked and flared, his hand raised, and his voice, _the_ Voice, spoke words dragged from the depths of the hollow place in his memory.

_You. Don't. Touch. Him. Ever._

The duality faded with the same abruptness with which it came, and Gabriel was in one body again. But not before he had a chance to glimpse an angelic brand on the wrist of the human. The man's soul was dripping with blood and evil, streaked with torment and demonic influence, but the sigil on the wrist shone like a beacon. Swirls of Enochian, golden and pure. A vigil brand offering protection and guardianship against the forces of darkness. A graffiti tag on the skin, the signature of an artist to a masterwork.

_Gabriel was here._

He was that human's guardian angel.

When the _fuck _had that happened?

=0=

Jimmy had not taken the subterfuge Castiel and Uriel had used on Dean well. Deep in the part of Castiel's Grace where the human's consciousness was subsumed, he was kicking up a virtual storm of protest, explaining at great lengths exactly what was wrong with the angels' notion of "tests" and how ridiculously unjust it was to slaughter thousands of innocent lives to kill one witch.

Jimmy's doubts were wholly unwelcome, but Castiel found them occupying more and more of his attention. Across the world, Seals were breaking. Lucifer was inching closer to freedom. Hell was on the verge of rising. But Castiel sat on the park bench beside Dean, spilling his fears and his uncertainties. He didn't know what talking to the mortal would do, but weirdly, it assuaged his concerns somewhat. It made him feel… _better_.

He didn't confess his deepest doubts, merely the superficial ones. He had never spoken to God directly, but surely his superiors did. Rumors were in Heaven that Joshua still had a direct line to the Father, as did Raphael and Michael. That was their due as seraphim, as the highest Choir.

But Uriel was a seraphim as well. Wouldn't he have known? (_Would he have told _you_, Castiel? _Jimmy whispered, and Castiel tried to ignore him, but couldn't.)

Castiel wished he could have spoken with Selaphiel or Jegudiel or even Gabriel, because they had more time to explain things to the lower Choirs. More compassion, less condescension. But those three were long-gone from Heaven, and not even the All-Seeing Eye of La Metatron could find them.

Was this what free will felt like? (_Yes, _insisted Jimmy.) To doubt, to question? (_Yes, _said Jimmy.) Did angels have free will at all? (_Obviously_, said Jimmy.)

Castiel sighed and shook his head. This was growing overwhelming. Perhaps he should take refuge in Heaven's peace for a time, to clear his mind and silence these doubts. Yes, that was what he would do. With Jimmy protesting vociferously in his mind, Castiel took himself to the Garden.

=0=

The altar was ready, the sigils painstakingly hand-drawn. The candles were lit, the incense burning. The offerings made, the texts studied. He couldn't put it off any more.

Dean dragged the match against the box's striker, and dropped the tiny flame in the brazier. It had taken time to gather all the components, especially since he was doing this under the radar, but after the ghost sickness breaking a whole lot of safeguards in his head, he was more than motivated.

"Voco Jegudiel," he said, letting the Latin he'd practiced for days roll off his tongue in a steady intonation. "Dico Jegudiel. Queso Jegudiel. Precor ex umbrae elucido quod dies. Videor, videor, videor." Then, for good measure, "C'mon, you big feathered dick. I'm waiting."

The candles flared, and there was quite suddenly a thin man standing in the lines of the angel-circle. He was tall and brown-haired and dressed like a gigilo. Dean was unimpressed.

"Well," the man said mildly, eyeing Dean like a side of beef, "this is new."

"Shove it, featherbrain," Dean said, snapping the book shut and tossing the box of matches onto the altar. "This isn't a social call."

"Pity," Jegudiel murmured. "Truly. Oh, alright then. What is it you want?"

Dean swallowed the bile that threatened to rise at his next words. "I called you on behalf of Gabriel."

Jegudiel's eyes lit up, then narrowed. "Go on."

There was inherent threat in that tone, which Dean blithely ignored. "The midget's gotten himself into trouble," he said. "And he needs your help." He held up a hand when Jegudiel opened his mouth. "Yeah, I get it. Dude is a dick, and should be able to take care of himself and blah blah blah." Pseudo-Gabriel had prepped him for the likely protests. "But he says you owe him for Jericho, and he's collecting on that debt."

In the intervening weeks, Dean had often wondered exactly what kind of debt archangels had to each other. He'd done some research on Jericho, and had turned up absolutely squat. But seeing the way the blood drained from Jegudiel's borrowed face, the way his eyes widened with fear, Dean suddenly was perfectly fine not knowing.

Yeah, he was far better off not knowing what terrified an archangel.


	4. The Forest Fire Beyond the Trees

**Title**: Road to the Apocalypse (3/10)  
**Author**: **ficlicious**  
**Rating**: Mature/R  
**Pairing**: Sam/Gabriel, Dean/Castiel  
**Warnings**: Explicit Language, Slash. Violence. Angst. Wings.  
**Spoilers**: General Season 4. Season 5, up to "Hammer of the Gods"  
**Disclaimer**: I'm not making any money from this. Kripke just makes awesome toys.  
**Characters**: Sam, Gabriel, God, Dean, Castiel, Ruby, Raphael, Assorted Angels, Others  
**Genres**: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, Spiritual  
**Word Count**: 3,163

**Author's Note: **Work's been a bear lately, with tons of Christmas-related events (staff party, gift exchange, fundraising potluck, children's party, etc), and wading my way through the psychopaths looking for bottom-dollar deals at my local Wal-Mart has left me absolutely buggered for energy. Nevertheless, I managed to get this one out in two and a half days. Go me!

Title of this installment comes from the lyrics of "Forestfire" by David Usher.

**The Forest Fire Beyond the Trees**

Gabriel stood on the plain of his mind, staring into the infinity of shapes and angles. On the surface, everything appeared to be as he'd left it: kaleidoscopic sky and fractal terrain, thoughts drifting in patterns of music and mathematical constructs. The metaphysics of a seraphim's mental topography represented without flaw. So it seemed at first, casual glance.

Deeper searching revealed to Gabriel the sloppy patch work, the razor sharp right angles where there should be smooth contours, the dimmer dapples in the lighting, the discordance in the harmonies. A shadow dry walled over marble, fig leaves covering the naughty bits of the statuary.

He frowned, brought his hands together, and spread them apart again.

The troublesome spot zoomed in like an incomplete Mandelbrot set, bulbs and spikes slightly off-kilter. A Rorschach butterfly with the wrong coloration. Crisp autumn air with the heat of a summer scorcher. Lightning crackling like a wood fire. Ozone dancing like Tchaikovsky's sugarplum fairy.

Gabriel closed his eyes against the onslaught of _wrong_. The great shining hollow wasn't as empty as he thought; it was filled with ranks of trees, tall and forbidding. Susurrations of names that he couldn't hear no matter how hard he strained his ears. And he strained. Oh, did he strain. Fragmented sounds, syllables of true names, flowed through his fingers like melting snow, like fleeing notes from an aria.

Frustrated, Gabriel flicked his fingers, and perspective normalized. He flicked again, and the spot zoomed away through four dimensions until he could see the whole of it stretching out into the timeline. The hole burned his past and his future, not just his present. He had a lot of experience under his belt, and a not-inconsiderable amount of power to throw around, but this was beyond anything he'd ever dreamed possible.

Something caught his eye. He squinted, hooked his fingers, and dragged the glint towards him. It was so faint as to be practically imperceptible, but a reflection from another memory had sparkled off it. He flicked his fingers, increasing perspective, and flicked again. Flick. Flick. Flick. Losing count of how many times he had magnified it, he hooked one last time and finally was able to see the glitter of Enochian.

He took a deep breath, then reached out with two fingers and touched it.

_He is defiant…cannot let him… everything must…all is lost… Lucifer will…_

A graffiti tag microscopically drawn. The signature of an artist to a masterpiece.

_Raphael was here._

Gabriel's eyes narrowed. Well, that explained a lot. Actually, it explained nothing. But it was a starting place. With an idle thought, he took himself back out of the spiraling space/time/music/math of his mind, planning out the course of response most likely to be successful.

Gabriel appreciated a good prank, even when it was on him, but there was nothing humorous about this. This was violation, and betrayal, and outrageous. One simply did not fuck with an archangel's headspace. Raphael seemed to have forgotten that. Just like he'd forgotten a few other things.

He'd forgotten that Gabriel, as God's Messenger, didn't always deliver _verbal_ messages. Sodom and Gomorrah stood testament to that little factoid—oh, wait. That's right, they _weren't_ standing anymore. He'd forgotten that "Gabriel" directly translated to "strength of God". Michael might be the heavyweight, Uriel the impartial judge, Lucifer the ridiculously indulged, but when God needed that hammer swung, it was Gabriel He trusted to swing it.

Gabriel exited his mind, pulled a pint of Ben & Jerry's Heavenly Hash out of thin air, and popped a spoon into being with his other hand. He plopped down in his favorite armchair, swung a leg over the armrest, cracked the ice cream open and began to plot.

Seemed like it was time to bring that hammer down once again, and remind his _beloved _older brother exactly what kind of strength God had.

=0=

Jegudiel paced in the confines of the angelic circle, and Dean watched him warily. He wasn't at all sure his sigils would hold the archangel if he really put his mind towards breaking free, so he had zero intention of giving Jegudiel a reason to try. Even though he knew archangels were several steps above humans, it was hard not to attribute human qualities to Jegudiel; he paced like a man with an agonizing problem, like he was working himself up to do the only thing he could do. Dean knew that state of mind well. He went through it several times per job.

More, lately, since his anticlimactic return from Hell and subsequent discovery of the echo of an archangel in his noggin. The sooner he could kick their feathered asses out of his life, the better he would feel.

Jegudiel stopped pacing abruptly, coming to a stop directly in front of Dean. "Jericho," he said flatly.

Dean nodded and tried to look like he was in the loop. "That's what he said, dude. You owe him for Jericho, and he's calling in your marker."

Jegudiel twitched, and Dean got the distinct impression he was restraining himself from resuming his pacing. Fleeting emotions flickered across his face, too fast for Dean to register, let alone identify. "You have my attention," he finally said. "Complete and undivided."

"Awesome." He hadn't meant it to sound quite that sarcastic, but it was too late to take it back now. "And just so we're clear, I'm not doing this out of the goodness of my heart. The little fucker shoved a whole string of horrors in my head and sent me back to _fix things_."

Jegudiel crossed his arms, tapping one long finger against the opposite elbow. He canted his head to the side, regarding Dean with an assessing gaze. Dean shifted his weight, feeling disconcertingly like a bug pinned to a board. "I don't see it," he said finally.

"See what?"

"The…" The archangel waved a hand, circling the air in Dean's general direction. "Attraction. This Earth has gone over two millennia without the Host shitting rainbows and divine intervention everywhere. Then you come along, angels almost literally crawling out of your ass, and everything changes."

Dean tried, and failed, not to let his cheeks clench at the mental imagery. He shuddered, an exaggerated, all-over body shake. "Dude, seriously? You _had _to go there."

Jegudiel lifted one shoulder in an apathetic shrug. "The point remains. Why you?"

"Talent? Charm? Rock-hard abs and an ass that doesn't quit?" Dean cringed the moment the words were out of his mouth. Chrissake, he'd had Gabriel and his never-ending stream of verbal diarrhea in his head for too long. The midget had infected him. "Can we just get this over with?"

"Very well." Dean didn't know a tone of voice could pout, but Jegudiel managed to pull it off nicely. He stepped out of the circle to Dean's great consternation.

"How long have you been able to do that?" he asked, stomach sinking.

"Hm?" Jegudiel looked behind and down as Dean pointed, and smirked. "Oh. Since about two seconds after I arrived in it. Circles are meant to hold demons, sweetpea. Not archangels."

Dean made a mental note of that for future uselessness. "Is this going to hurt?"

Jegudiel's smile was sudden, sharp and seductive. "Not if I do it right."

It took Dean a moment to process, another to catch on. Then his eyes went wide. "Dude! Ew!"

Jegudiel rolled his eyes. "How terribly suburban of you. Now shut up and hold still." Dean braced himself for the poking, and tried not to flinch away from the fingertips on his forehead. Every time an angel did this, his life got even more screwed up.

Jegudiel was surprisingly gentle. Dean _really _didn't want to couch it in sexual terms, but that was what his brain supplied. Castiel was abrupt and straightforward, Gabriel had been rushed and more than a little insane, and Zachariah just did as he pleased without any regard for Dean. But Jegudiel was considerate, moderate and rifled through his implanted, jumbled-up mess of a memory like he was caressing a lover.

Dean cringed. Oh God. There wasn't enough brain bleach in the universe.

_A red-haired man, contempt painted on his damaged face, blood to the elbow. Gabriel's taunting voice, "Lucy, I'm home…" Uriel, calmly discussing wiping an entire town off the map because a Seal _might _be broken if it stayed. Gabriel's wings around Sam as the angel and human lay tangled_ _on a motel bed. Castiel staring betrayed at his older brother, trapped in holy fire. The Witnesses rising. Gods and monsters wearing "Hi, my name is" nametags as they discussed the impending Apocalypse. Gabriel, waltzing in, wondering why we couldn't all just get along. Doctor Sexy wore cowboy boots. "Yeah, you're not a fan." Gabriel, burning and pissed, between Sam and Lilith, Dean's bloody body feet away on the floor. Little Gabriel, a guardian angel at last. Who's the lucky sot? An angelic brand burning on Sam's wrist. The collapse under the weight of a dozen angels, while a black man with cheekbones sharp enough to carve a turkey watched dispassionately. Drinks on a couch with Jegudiel. Flying high above a pristine wilderness. Shaping a soul in a glade so perfect it brought tears to the eyes._

It went on and on, until Dean wished he could close his eyes and turn away. But everything was in his head, and there was no turning away from that. As Jegudiel got the hang of what was his real memory, and what Gabriel had stuffed in there, Dean got the sensation he was filing, indexing and adding fucking cross-referencing appendices to his brain. His hand twitched with the urge to slap the archangel's hand away from his head.

Yeah, like he could have moved it anyway.

Finally, the streaming, flashing images and sensations slowed to a crawl, ending with a shot of Gabriel in a truly horrendous porno, and Jegudiel broke contact. Dean inhaled a great, gulping lungful of air, bending over with his hands on his knees.

Son of a bitch, that _sucked._

When he got himself back in order, Dean straightened and jumped when he saw Jegudiel watching him closely with a completely unreadable expression. He fidgeted under the unblinking gaze, finally snapping, "What?!" when he couldn't take it anymore.

Jegudiel's expression flooded with compassion long enough that Dean registered it, then went back to neutral. Dean clenched his hand by his leg. He didn't need the big feathery asshole's pity. Then Jegudiel looked away, dusted his hands off, and said cheerily, "I'm off then."

Dean grabbed the archangel's arm before he consciously thought about moving. "Hold on a minute," he said. "That's it? You organize my head like it was some sort of school binder, and you're leaving?" He didn't know what Gabriel had wanted him to do, but it sure as fuck couldn't have been _this_. "What about Jericho, huh? Your _brother _needs your help."

"Winchester," Jegudiel said with disdain, "you have absolutely no idea what Jericho means between Gabriel and I. So I would be careful of what you speak." His expression didn't move, but icy terror screamed up Dean's spine.

"Okay," he said, swallowing hard. Then, muttering, "I'm just doing what the jackass told me to do."

Jegudiel actually had the nerve to pat him on the head, like a dog that had fetched a stick. "And a good boy you are too," he cooed. Dean bristled but for once listened to his logic instead of his impulse and kept his mouth shut. Jegudiel's hand started to drop, but then his fingers hooked into the neck of Dean's shirt and dragged it to the side.

"Interesting," he murmured.

Dean jerked away, hastily straightening his tee with a scowl. "Dude, hands off the merchandise."

Jegudiel quirked a smug eyebrow and snapped his fingers. Dean yelped as his shirt vanished, and crossed his arms in front of his chest, realized he was acting like an embarrassed chick, and dropped his arms again. "Not cool," he growled.

Jegudiel shrugged. "I just wanted to see your brand," he said and, completely without Dean's permission, brushed his fingers across it. "_Castiel was here_," he murmured.

Of course, that was the perfect moment for the door to open and Sam to wander in, hands full of books from whatever local occult shop he'd been visiting. He stopped dead in his tracks, and Dean suddenly realized what it must look like. He was shirtless, there were candles burning, and a man who might have passed for Deuce Bigalow's fashion advisor had his hands on Dean's skin. If it wasn't so horrifying, it would have been comical.

"This is totally not what it looks like!" he blurted, and Sam's eyes went round in his skull. "My pants are still on, dammit!"

=0=

The Garden wasn't helping.

Jimmy appreciated the beauty of the Garden, magnificent beyond all human comprehension, and he enjoyed the peace and the serenity of it. But unlike Castiel, his mind did not become settled or complacent. It only raised more questions, more doubts, cemented his uncertainties. For a few, blessed minutes, Castiel's shared head-space had been quiet, as Jimmy gaped and stared at the beauty unfolded around them, but when the human had time to adjust to his new surroundings, Jimmy had asked a simple question.

_Why isn't everything like this?_

Castiel had no answer. And now, he was wondering this himself. If God intended Earth to be a Paradise, why would God have allowed Lilith to be corrupted? Why would God have allowed Lucifer access to Eden, where he could infect Eve with new ideas that would result in their expulsion? God was omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. Surely he could have halted Lucifer's schemes before they resulted in humanity's current predicaments.

_The best things in life are earned, not gifted, _Jimmy broke in with surprising insight. _Perhaps God wanted us to earn this kind of reward._

Castiel mulled that over for a long moment, one hand resting on the trunk of a redwood. Yes, that would be according to the Plan. God most rewarded those who strived, ever-reaching, for higher and higher planes. Castiel hadn't considered that before.

_God is wise._

Castiel nodded. "Yes," he said. "He is."

_And he has a Plan._

The first pricklings of misgiving started in the pit of his stomach. Where was this going? "Yes," Castiel said slowly. "He does."

He could feel Jimmy smile, deep in the cushioned pit where he dwelt. _Then get out of Heaven, get back down to Earth and help the Winchesters. _

"I can't," Castiel said, doubt niggling into his tone. "It would disrupt—"

_Nothing. It would disrupt nothing. Demons, perhaps, or some of the angels' plans. But not God's. I know you, Castiel, better than anyone. You are not arrogant enough to think that anything you do can affect God's Plan. _

"Jimmy—"

_Or maybe you are. Maybe you think you're important enough, special enough, powerful enough, to oust God, to derail what He has spent the entirety of existence orchestrating?_

Castiel instinctively shied away from that line of thought.

_I thought not. _Jimmy's satisfaction spread warm and liquid through their shared thoughts. _Castiel, it doesn't matter to God what you do. He has already accounted for your actions; otherwise He wouldn't be God. What you do now only matters to _you.

Castiel could feel his resistance melting away. "The garrison," he said, and it sounded weak even to him. "My superiors… their orders…"

_Are probably not God's orders, _Jimmy said firmly. _I know you don't want to think that, but it's true. God hasn't spoken directly to any angel in a very long time. And the archangels' communication with them is only rumor and conjecture. So tell me, Castiel… If you're not working on God's command, whose orders are you _really _taking?_

Yawning horror blossomed in his mind as Jimmy forced Castiel to consider exactly what he suggested. Castiel worked by logic and reason and faith, most comfortable in a rigid command structure, and he knew every single Principality, Power, Virtue, Dominion and Throne between him and the Seraphim at the top. None of them had the capacity or the _(Just say it, Castiel) _free will to manipulate, plan and orchestrate on their own. None but the name at the very top of the list.

_Raphael_, supplied Jimmy, because if Castiel spoke it aloud, it would undoubtedly alert the archangel.

"We should go," Castiel said in lieu of a direct response. The Garden no longer felt as safe as it once had.

_We should. And Castiel? Do us both a favor, go directly to the Winchesters. You're going to end up there anyway, so don't waste time about it._

Castiel had no reason to argue with his passenger, not anymore. With a flick of thought, he disappeared from Heaven.

=0=

A rush of displaced air from behind him alerted Gabriel that he was no longer alone. No one should have been able to find him, as far underground as he was, holed up in his favorite hiding spot in the ice fields of Pluto. Then again, no one should have been able to fuck with his memory either, and _that _had obviously happened.

Cool metal slid into his fingers and the skin along his shoulders itched as he tensed, preparing to attack.

"Bubby," the intruder cried, spreading his arms wide. "You don't call. You don't write. I'm beginning to think I meant nothing to you after all."

Gabriel's eyebrows crawled into his hairline and he spun around. "_Jegudiel_?"

"The one and only," Jegudiel said cheerily. "So put your sword away, little brother. You won't be needing it. Also, we've been through this. It's Balthazar now. And yes," he added with a raised finger, "before you open your big yob, it _is _the best I could come up with."

There was something so irritatingly familiar about this conversation. Gabriel ground his teeth together. He was getting oh so very tired of things he didn't understand. "The sword stays," he said coolly, "until you explain yourself."

Jegudiel kept his hands up, fingers spread, to show he was unarmed. "Gabriel," he said, "I know what's going on, in Heaven and on Earth. Probably Hell as well, but that's not one of my usual vacation spots, so no guarantee there. I'm here to help."

"And why," he asked, "do you even care? It's been eons since we spoke."

Jegudiel watched him, arms lowering. "You called in a debt through a proxy."

Once upon a time, Gabriel would have taken him at his word. But not anymore. Not with gaping pits where chunks of himself should be. "You owe me so many. Which proxy?"

Jegudiel's eyes were steady. "The proxy was Dean Winchester, the brother of your bonded human," he said. "Only you could have figured out such a convoluted way to go about doing it, too. And the debt," he added carefully, "is Jericho."

Gabriel dropped his sword.


	5. All Your Demons Are Heaven-Sent

**Author's Note**: Since there apparently wasn't enough Sam last chapter (and I admit, there wasn't), this chapter is almost entirely from his point of view. We're now at the midpoint of the story, and things are going to be moving fairly quickly from here on out. (The first scene was not originally in the updated outline. I wrote it as a gift for **SkyHighFan**, who wanted to see what happened after Sam entered the room last chapter. I may have slid a tad out of character in the first scene. I hope it isn't too game-breaking.)

Title for this chapter comes from the lyrics of The Tea Party's, "Cathartik".

=0=

**All Your Demons Are Heaven-Sent**

It wasn't often Dean had a bitch fit, but when he did, they were for epic reasons. Dean liked to pace, and gesticulate with broad, windmilling sweeps of his arms. He liked to stab things with his eyes and set his jaw in what was presumably a scowl of extreme masculine displeasure. Whenever possible, Sam tried his best to avoid Dean when he got in these moods. Broody, bitchy Dean was not all that fun to be around.

But Sam wouldn't miss this bitch fit for the world.

He settled in a chair in the corner with his laptop and his books as Dean stomped from bathroom to duffel bag, jamming his hand inside and rummaging around like he was digging for gold. It was hard keeping a straight face as his brother jerked the bag this way and that, peering inside like he wanted to set something on fire, muttering under his breath.

Finally, Sam couldn't take it anymore. He cleared his throat, hoping that would dissolve the urge to break into loud, braying laughter. "So," he said, pleased that his voice had come out so neutral, "he seemed nice."

Dean puffed up like a porcupine. "Nice? That's what you call nice?" he snarled, stabbing a finger at Sam. A worn Metallica tee dangled forlornly beneath it. "Let me tell you something, Sam. Angels are not _nice_. Angels are _assholes_. They pop in and out as they see fit, whether you're awake or asleep, dragging you into the past, into the future, snapping their goddamn fingers and stealing a man's favorite shirt. Does that sound _nice_ to you?"

Sam fought to keep his mouth straight. "I guess not."

Dean nodded, jaw still set. "Damn right, you guess not." With sharp, rough motions, he hauled the shirt on, then whipped a flannel long-sleeve from the bag and buttoning it over the tee. "I mean, what the _hell_? He just up and stole my shirt! Who _does_ that? I'll tell you who does that, Sammy. _Douchebags_."

His left eye was twitching rhythmically. Sam recited the exorcism prayer backwards in his head, in Latin, to distract himself from the helpless laughter bubbling up in his throat. He knew how to read the signs: Dean was ramping himself up into a lengthy, vitriolic rant, and Sam just wanted to sit back and enjoy the ride. If he laughed, he wouldn't enjoy it, because then Dean would be yelling at _him._

"And I'll tell you something else! They're too touchy-feely. It's like they think jabbing someone in the head with their fingers makes everything better. Got a bullet wound, jab in the forehead. Need some information, jab in the forehead. Feel like dicking with someone just for shits and giggles, jab in the forehead. It freaking hurts, Sam! I'm pretty sure my skull has permanent dents, shaped like big dick fingers!"

Sam almost lost it, but heroically managed to hang on even though his eyes were burning and his chest hurt. He was sure if he tried to talk, he would squeak.

"If it's not Zachariah, it's Gabriel. If it's not Gabriel, it's Yahoodiel. If it's not that jackass, it's Castiel, and Castiel has some _grabby_ fucking hands, Sam. Not that I mind being hauled out of Hell, mind you. That place makes our lives look like a Club Med vacation. But he branded me, Sam." He stopped, whirled and jerked the neck of his shirt aside, eyes wild. He leaned down, so Sam could see the raised handprint. "_Branded me_. Like a cow!"

Sam successfully didn't moo at his brother. Even though he really, _really _wanted to.

There was a quiet rush of air and Castiel appeared directly behind Dean. "Dean," he said, "I've uncovered information."

"Gah!" Dean jumped, and his flailing arm narrowly avoided hitting Sam in the eye. He spun, clutching his chest. "Don't _do _that!"

Castiel frowned that little puzzled frown that so often appeared on his face. "Do what?"

"You! Don't do… _you!_"

The angel's head tilted ever so slightly to the left. "I don't understand."

Dean threw his hands up. "Of course you don't. Why would you?"

Sam gave up all pretense of dignity, slid under the table, and laughed until he hurt himself.

=0=

"I believe Heaven is actively seeking to begin the Apocalypse."

Sam stared at Castiel, wondering if the angel had made a rare joke. Every time an angel showed up in their lives, they were criticizing their every attempt at stopping Lilith in her tracks. They had even threatened to destroy an entire town because Samhain was a Seal. Now they were trying to kickstart the end of the world? He couldn't have heard that right.

Sam had heard the term _cognitive dissonance_ bandied around in his psych courses at Stanford, but had never truly understood what it meant until right now.

"As much as I want to believe otherwise," Castiel continued, while Sam tried to wrap his head around the bomb that had just dropped, "events have been set into motion that will conclude with Lucifer rising from the Cage. And those events could only have been manipulated by angels of the highest order."

Sam swallowed. "How high?"

"High," Dean said from the corner, and Sam nearly got whiplash turning to stare at him. His brother leaned on the edge of the table, arms crossed, face pensive. "In fact, I don't think you could go much higher and still be an angel."

Castiel nodded his agreement. "Indeed."

"You're saying an archangel is behind all this? You're joking."

"Yeah, well, we aren't." Dean pushed away from the table and moved to stand in front of the angel. "Tell him, Cas. Tell him about how you weren't dispatched to haul my ass off the rack until the first Seal broke."

Castiel blinked. "How did you—"

"I'll get to that." Sam knew Dean's tones, and that one, that tightly-controlled, clipped tone, meant Dean was royally pissed and had been for long enough to form a grudge. "Go on. Tell him. Tell _me._"

Castiel blinked again, then sighed. "I didn't realize it at the time, Dean," he said softly. "It never occurred to me that they could have sent me before the first Seal broke."

"Hold on." Sam stood, frowning. "The first Seal was the Witnesses." He looked between Castiel, stoic and solemn, and Dean, stoic and fuming. "Wasn't it?"

"'When a righteous man sheds blood in Hell," Castiel said softly, "'the first Seal shall be broken.'"

Sam sank back into his chair, eyes riveted on Dean. Dean glanced at him, and there was guilt and shame and self-loathing and fury in his eyes. "They tried with Dad," he said, nearly spitting the words, "but we opened the Devil's Gate, and Dad got away. Then I got dragged to the Pit, and I broke, Sammy."

"Dean…"

"Save it. I'm dealing." Meaning he wasn't, at all. "It gets worse, Sam."

His eyebrows went up. "Worse?"

Dean's gaze was steady. "Lucifer wants to wear you to the prom."

"…What?"

"Lucifer is still an angel, Sam," Castiel said, but Sam couldn't look away from Dean if his life depended on it. He was silently begging his brother to take it back, say it was just a hideously bad joke. Dean looked like he wanted to, but he just slowly shook his head. "He needs a vessel. You are that vessel."

Sam looked between Dean and Castiel. Neither of them moved, blinked, or opened their mouths. "Bullshit," he finally blurted.

"It is, actually," Dean said, turning to face Castiel, and Sam felt a rush of relief so sudden he wanted to cry. The breath he'd been holding pushed out of his lungs in an explosive gust, and he folded double.

"Don't do that to me, Dean," he muttered.

"You're not off the angel condom hook quite yet, Sammy. Again, I'll get to it." Dean turned to Castiel. "Hate to tell you, man, but you've been fed a crock of shit all this time. Sam's not Lucifer's party dress, no matter how much your douchebag brothers want to make it true."

Castiel's mouth opened, but nothing came out. He snapped it shut. "I don't understand."

"Think, Cas. Use that higher thought process you claim to have. Hell, use the brain Jimmy loaned you and think about it. You want to take it a step further, why don't you go ahead, turn up the volume on your real voice, and see if he can take it. You already know _I _can't."

Sam was lost. Where the hell was this going? What did Dean know that he didn't?

Castiel's brow furrowed, and his face cleared. "Yes," he said. "I believe I understand now."

"Um…" Sam raised his hand above his head. "For those of us who aren't following… what the hell's going on?"

Dean told him.

The bottom dropped out of Sam's world.

=0=

"Sam."

He really needed a drink, and they were out of beer. Hard booze too, but it was late, and there weren't likely to be any liquor stores open in this small of a town at this hour. If he looked really hard, maybe he could find a hole-in-the-wall bar. He rifled through Dean's pockets until he came up with the keys, and then strode towards the door, completely ignoring his brother and the angel.

"Sam!" Dean grabbed his arm, halting him in his tracks and swinging him around. "Sam, where are you going?"

"Out," he snapped.

"Sam…"

For a moment, he thought Dean wasn't going to let go of his arm. That he'd insist on the discussion _right now, _and that wasn't something Sam was willing to accept. But Dean surprised him by releasing the grip on his shoulder, stepping back with raised hands and saying, "Okay."

He hated it when Dean made him feel unreasonable, and he shoved his hands in his pockets. "I'll be back in fifteen minutes. And we'll talk."

He exited the motel room, letting the heavy door swing closed behind him. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, leaning back against the wall and shoving his hands into his hair.

Lucifer's vessel. That was a whole ton of crap to drop on his head. The other stuff – the Trickster being the archangel Gabriel, Dean's impromptu voyage to the year 2014, the prophet Chuck (_seriously, _Chuck_? Who named a prophet Chuck?_) – all paled in comparison to that nugget of information.

All of his life, he'd been a plaything of demons. Azazel had set him up from the time he was born, infected him when he was six months old. Killed his mother. Killed his girlfriend. Manipulated from behind the scenes on behalf of Lucifer this entire time. They'd been working towards this single goal

And apparently, so too had the angels.

Goddammit, he hated all this manipulative shit.

He got into the Impala with every intention to drive to the 7-Eleven down the block, load up on the booze and the sugar, and head back to the motel to deal with the new bomb dropped into the wasteland of his life. But, as he stopped at a red light, those plans were completely derailed when the passenger door opened, and Ruby slid into the seat beside him.

"You're a hard man to track down, Sam," she said by way of greeting. She ran a hand through her hair and turned side-on to face him. She looked every bit as delectable as she had the last time they'd spoken, and Sam found his eyes focusing on the pulse beating in the vein just under her ear.

"Ruby—" He swallowed, gripping the wheel in white-knuckled fists and forced his attention back on the road. He could practically hear Ruby's blood thundering in his ears. It had been too long since he'd last had a fix. It took all he had just to keep driving. "Ruby, you shouldn't be here."

She smirked. "C'mon. Where else am I gonna be? I told you, Sam, I want to help you."

_She's playing me. Trying to prepare me to be Lucifer's vessel. _He glanced at her, had to drag his eyes away again as his mouth went dry and his chest tightened. "At least put your seatbelt on," he said.

"You know I could go right through the windshield without a scratch, right?"

He gritted his teeth. "Just do it. Please."

Ruby smiled and shifted around until she was facing forward again. She hooked the belt with one hand and dragged it to the buckle. "There's a nest of demons in town," she said, leaning her elbow against the door.

He longed to tell her to get the hell out of his car and out of his life, longed to turn his psychic abilities on her, but he'd promised Dean he wouldn't. It was getting harder and harder to remember why he'd made that promise. "We haven't seen any signs," he said instead.

Ruby rolled her eyes. "Sam," she said chidingly. "Not every demon leaves behind signs. These ones are keeping their heads down. They don't want to attract notice."

"Doesn't exactly sound like the typical demon M.O.," he said.

His passenger shrugged. "They're Lilith's minions, and they're waiting to receive orders."

Dean might have returned from hell, and there might be angels practically living in their motel rooms now, but the mention of Lilith brought knots to Sam's shoulders. "She has plans for this town?"

"It's not like she confides in me, Sam," Ruby said with a biting smile. "But if I had to guess? Yeah, she does. It was built on top of a Seal."

Sam's eyebrows went up. "A Seal, like Lucifer's prison Seal?"

"Well, I wasn't talking about furry iceberg critters. Yes, a Seal on Satan's prison."

"And you think she's here to break it."

"Think, Sam." Ruby turned as much as the seatbelt allowed her to look at Sam. He didn't want to trust her, but so far her information had been right on the money. And he wasn't seeing deception or dishonesty in her face. She was frank, concerned even. Demon or not, Ruby really was trying to help him, even if Dean couldn't see it. "She's powerful, but her followers aren't infinite. Do you _really _think she'd waste resources on a Seal if it wasn't one she planned on breaking?"

The turnoff for the convenience store was just ahead. If Sam was going to decide, he had to do it now. He wavered for a moment, torn between his desire for revenge and his promise to Dean.

Ruby said, "There's a motel ahead. Pull in, and I'll get us a room. You could use a boost." Her hand drifted along the line of his jaw, the scent of blood wafted to his nose, and Sam felt the cravings roar back to life, savage and undeniable. God, he was so screwed.

His wrist began to itch. His last cogent thought as he hauled into the parking lot was for someone to help him, because he sure as hell couldn't help himself.

=0=

Dean eyed Castiel while pretending to read one of the lengthy, non-English tomes Sam had brought home from the bookstore. He wasn't a bad hand at piecing together languages—a survival skill he'd picked up from Bobby—but he wasn't paying enough attention to it to even begin to guess at its language of origin.

Castiel looked… Dean wasn't entirely sure, but _perturbed _seemed to be a good start. He stood at the window, staring out into the parking lot with a pensive look. Dean was pretty sure what was going through the angel's head, but if he didn't ask, Cas would never mention it.

Dean cleared his throat. "You okay, man?"

Castiel jumped like he'd been shot, shooting one startled glance at Dean before his expression smoothed out into his smooth, neutral mien. "No," he said, and returned his attention to the window.

Dean waited, but there wasn't anything more forthcoming. He rolled his eyes. "Anything you want to talk about?"

"My superiors are fomenting civil war and Armageddon," Castiel said baldly, still scanning the parking lot. "Talking about it will solve nothing."

"At the risk of kick-starting a chick moment, it might make you feel better."

Castiel paused, started to look over his shoulder, and then turned completely around. "You misunderstand me, Dean," he said. "I am not upset, or saddened. I am _angry._"

Dean raised an eyebrow. "That's your angry face?" It looked just like Castiel's normal expression to him.

"Yes." Castiel moved towards Dean, stopping a few feet away. Dean nudged a chair towards Castiel, but the angel ignored it. Christ, did the dude never sit down? "I am angry and, while talking about the problem will not solve it, deciding on a course of action to take may."

"That sounds like a good cue," Balthazar said from behind Dean, and Dean leapt out of his skin. "Hello, dearies. Did you miss me?"

"Son of a bitch!" He glared at Balthazar, who just smiled and shrugged it off. "Do none of you assholes possess the ability to walk through a door like normal people?"

"Mm. I do, actually. But why would I, sweetling, when it's so much fun the other way?"

Dean thought about throwing the book in his hands at Balthazar; it was a hefty thing, it would do some damage. But Sam would kill him. Dean frowned. Where the hell _was _Sam anyway?

"Balthazar. Where is Gabriel?" Castiel asked.

"Probably wants to make an entrance, the pint-sized drama queen." Dean looked around expectantly, but the seconds ticked by with no appearance from the Messenger of God. What was more worrisome was the genuine puzzlement on Balthazar's face.

"He was right behind me."

=0=

Ruby slammed him into the wall, scrabbling near his side to open the door, yanking his head down to devour his mouth. Sam tolerated that for a moment, rolled her into the wall beside him and yanked the door open. She jumped up, wrapping both legs around his waist and throwing him off-balance enough that he staggered into the room until he collapsed on top of her on the bed.

"Yeah, baby," she purred, writhing when he pressed against her. With a smirk, she flashed her knife, dragging it with agonizing slowness across her forearm. "I know what you need."

Sam stared at her, stared at the blood, prayed to God for Dean to burst in, for Castiel to swoop down, for someone to stop him. Then, he paused. Why did he need to be stopped? He could get Lilith before she broke any more seals, destroy the threat, and then Lucifer would never rise. And if Lucifer never popped out of some hole in the ground, there would be no Apocalypse.

No. _No_. He promised Dean. Angels had threatened him. Sam drank deep from Ruby's arm, and the heady rush of power filled him up in ways he hadn't even realized he was empty. Clarity sharpened his mind to a razor, strength flooded his veins. God, _why _had he wanted to give this up again?

"Well, this looks like a cozy scene."

Sam jerked his head away from Ruby's wrist, disoriented. The Trickster – no, not the Trickster, _Gabriel _– stood in the doorway, hands loosely in the pockets of his jeans. Ruby shifted beneath him, grinding against him, and dragged her bleeding arm over her head. Sam focused on the beads of blood running down

He was distantly aware of Gabriel approaching the bed, distantly aware of Ruby throwing out a hand, and a whisper of power blasting out from her, directed at Gabriel. The taste of copper was in his mouth, his veins, his brain, and all else fell by the wayside.

"Sorry, sweetcheeks," he heard Gabriel say, "but that shit don't work on me."

Sam felt the change in Ruby instantly. Instead of relaxed and writhing, she tensed like steel for one moment before she abruptly tossed Sam off her. He flew halfway across the room, impacting the wall with enough force to rock the armoire and knock the wind out of his lungs. Confused, oxygen-starved, he could only watch as Ruby sat up with a hiss, eyes black and knife gleaming.

"You're going to ruin everything, Trickster!"

Things happened very quickly then.

Sam would never be sure of the chain of events, if it was a succession chain, or if everything happened all at once. Ruby lunged, knife raised for an overhand strike, Gabriel watched her come with an indulgent, bemused smirk, and then there was an eruption of light that made him slap his arm over his eyes and cower away.

When his eyes adjusted, gasping for air that wouldn't come, Sam squinted into the brightness. If he still had any breath, it would have frozen in his lungs.

Gabriel stood at the epicenter of the light, still indulgent, still bemused. One hand, though, was now outstretched, holding Ruby effortlessly in the air by the throat. Ruby's knife-hand trembled like it had hit an invisible wall and she was trying to force the blade through. The far wall held the shadow of six massive, fully flared wings.

"Demons," Gabriel said with a chuckle. "So very predictable. Must be Lucy's influence. Big brother always did have a one-track mind."

Spots swam before Sam's eyes. He needed air soon, or he was going to pass out.

"Go to hell!" Ruby spat.

"You first," Gabriel said. He brought his other hand out of his pocket, and it glowed like a tiny sun. Ruby's head snapped back. Black, inky, oily smoke poured out of her mouth. "And where do you think you're going?" Gabriel waved a finger like he was scolding a misbehaving child. He flicked that finger sideways, and the smoke reversed course, slamming back into the vessel with enough force to crash into the floor.

With a rush of oxygen that left him dizzy, Sam got his breath back. His vision swam.

Through the blur, he saw Gabriel lower his arm, looking down at Ruby. Her eyes were wide, her face completely bloodless, as she stared up at him from her sprawl on the floor.

"What the hell are you?" she wheezed.

Gabriel's lips curved into the most sadistic smile Sam had ever seen, enough to make him shiver. "They call me Gabriel," he told her. "But hold that thought." He snapped his fingers, and Ruby was suddenly trussed and tied with rope up to her eyeballs.

Gabriel crouched down beside Sam, arms loosely on his knees. "Sam," he admonished. "You keep getting yourself into all kinds of trouble, don't you? What are we going to do with you? Running around with demons? Tsk, tsk, tsk. Didn't anyone ever tell you they can give you all sorts of nasty diseases?"

"The hell are you doing here?" Sam gasped.

"You called, kiddo." Far more gently than Sam would have thought possible, Gabriel reached out, picked up his wrist and flipped it over.

Sam glanced down. Under the sleeve of his jacket peeked angry red raised skin. Sam stared at it, then at Gabriel. "What the hell is that?"

"Angelic brand," came the short answer as Gabriel sat back on his heels and regarded him frankly. "Mine, actually. I don't remember putting it there, but it's not something you can fake, so I must have."

"Meaning?"

Gabriel grinned. "Meaning I'm going to haunt you for the rest of eternity," he said with way too much cheer in his voice. "Won't that be fun?"

"We have—" Sam pushed himself upright, then slouched back with a hiss. Dammit, felt like a rib was cracked. He cradled his torso and tried sitting up again. That was a little better. "—different definitions of _fun_."

Gabriel raised a hand, eyebrow quirked. "Want a hand?" he asked.

Sam nodded, not thinking of what Gabriel had meant past the face value. He held out his own hand, which Gabriel completely ignored to press his palm against Sam's forehead. Warmth spread along his limbs, tingling in his fingers and toes. He could feel his rib knit rapidly under Gabriel's direction. When the warmth faded, his chest didn't hurt anymore.

Better still, the blood rush and cravings were completely gone. Part of him screamed for more, but a larger part was just bloody relieved it wasn't being held hostage to Ruby's blood.

Third time was the charm, as Sam got his feet under him and stood up.

"That's as much as I can do without more preparation," Gabriel said, also rising. His hands went back into his pockets.

Sam frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Kiddo… You've got darkness literally dripping off your soul. You've got demon blood pumping through your veins. Psychic powers you were never meant to have."

An odd feeling started in the pit of Sam's gut. "You're saying you can heal what was done to me?"

"_Saaaam. _C'mon. I'm an archangel. Of course I can." A slight pause. "But it'll hurt. You, I mean. Less so if I prepare first. Sigils and wards and mumbo-jumbo." He waved a hand. "Boring, technical stuff."

Sam lowered his head to glare at him. "But it can be done."

"_Yes_," Gabriel said. "Did that knock on the wall shake something loose in your noggin, or do you always need things repeated three or four times before you grasp them?" Before Sam could respond, he held up a finger. "We can have this conversation later. Right now, we're late."

Sam blinked. Oh, crap. Dean. He hesitated for a moment, long enough to glance at Ruby. What little he could see of her, anyway. Seriously, did she need that much rope? "Are you just going to leave her here?"

"Why would I do that?" Gabriel asked, hooking his fingers at Ruby. As if attached to strings, she jerked upright and across the floor towards them, her booted feet dragging behind. "She's seen too much, she knows too much, and besides, she's integral to Lilith's plan. We'll take her with us, and let the boys have their fun." His grin was sudden and savage. "I know a Winchester who spent some time in Hell who would just _love _to see her again." His eyes darkened, his tone shifted. "And I've got a few questions for her of my own, about a certain older brother of mine, and how involved he is in Lucifer's rising."

Sam tried not to take too much pleasure in Ruby's shrieks of protest.


	6. CrumblingDifferenceBetweenWron gandRight

**Author's Note**: It's incredibly difficult not to turn Gabriel into the Eleventh Doctor when you're writing while there's a Doctor Who marathon on. The original chapter is getting too bulky (5000 words and counting), so the first half has been broken off and posted as its own installment, while I wrestle with the problematic sections in the second half. Title comes from the lyrics of "Round Here" by Counting Crows.

**The Crumbling Difference Between Wrong and Right**

With the adrenaline rush over, without Ruby's blood screaming in his head, Sam was distinctly uncomfortable with Gabriel sitting in the front seat of the Impala. The archangel had offered to zap all three of them—Sam, himself, and poor trussed-up Ruby—back to the motel room, but Sam had declined. If he returned without the Impala, Dean would have his head. He was very careful to only think the addendum: if he let Gabriel put his sticky hands on the car to teleport her too, Dean would remove a much more sensitive portion of his anatomy.

So here he was, driving back from his illicit meeting in the rent-by-the-hour motel, with a short pseudo-god staring out the passenger-side window, and Ruby heaped in the back in what was likely to be an uncomfortable pile of rope and limbs. He expected to feel a pang of pity for her, and was somewhat surprised to find he was darkly satisfied instead.

Gabriel, though, was another matter. Sam glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, but Gabriel just kept a steady watch out the window at the passing neon lights and dim streetlamps. He didn't know what to say, now that the excitement was done and cold reality set in, and it left him feeling awkward and gangly, like he had when he was fourteen and he had a crush on Jen Anders when they'd stayed somewhere long enough for him to finish ninth grade.

Red skin peeked out from the cuff of his jacket, and he took his hand off the wheel long enough to pull it up. Unlike Dean's handprint, his brand had no discernible shape; it was raw and tangled, smooshed together and unreadable. He brushed his thumb over the raised skin, shivering slightly at the cool tingle that resulted. It looked painful and incomplete, but it didn't hurt. He wished he could just ask Gabriel what it was supposed to be, but the words kept choking in his throat.

"Stop it," Gabriel said, voice tight, and Sam jerked his head around. Gabriel still had his head turned away, but the reflection of his eyes met Sam's.

"You can feel that?" Sam ran his whole hand over the brand again, for good measure.

Gabriel's eyes closed briefly, and his shoulders tensed. "Yes!" he snapped. "Now stop it! It's weird."

Sam smirked, but put his hand back on the wheel, leaving his marked wrist alone. Now that _that _avenue of conversation was exhausted, uncomfortable silence descended again, punctuated by Ruby's thrashing and grunting in the back seat. After a particularly vicious kick that rocked Sam forward almost into the steering column, he glanced at Gabriel, silently beseeching him to do something.

Gabriel eyed him back, rolled his eyes heavenward, and then turned to lean over the seat. "Continue kicking," he said, voice sweet as syrup, "and I'll cut off your legs. You don't need those to answer questions."

The kicking abruptly stopped, and Sam sighed in relief. Gabriel reached down and did something to Ruby—probably patting her on the head, if his smug smirk was any indication—and turned back around. "Better?"

Sam glanced at him, but couldn't read his mood. "Thank you," he said, because he didn't know what else to say. He was racking his brain for anything to talk about, but drew a blank. The best he had was s_o, you're an archangel. What's that lik_e? And that was just lame.

"It's awesome," Gabriel said. "Phenomenal cosmic power, lightning, wind, all that jazz."

Sam flushed, abruptly reminded that angels, when they wanted to, could read minds. "Don't do that," he said. "It's creepy."

Gabriel quirked an eyebrow. "That's one for you, and one for me." At Sam's confused look, he clarified, "Ground rules. You don't rub your wrist, and I won't read your mind."

"We need ground rules?" Sam supposed they did, with their history and all. He thought of those Tuesdays, the world after Wednesday, alien abductions and alligators in sewers and wormholes and everything else he'd tracked down in the twilight six months in Wonderland. Whatever the hell this was definitely needed ground rules, before he ended up being turned into a frog, or Gabriel ended up getting stabbed with a big stick again.

"Shut up, Sam."

Sam blinked at Gabriel. "What?"

"You think entirely too much," Gabriel said, and slid his hand along the back of Sam's neck, threading his fingers carefully through Sam's hair. Sam tensed, expecting anything from a sudden attack to a sudden pop elsewhere, but all Gabriel did was go back to looking out the window. "You need a haircut," he said, and his thumb started to move and Sam practically dissolved.

Sam knew there'd be an explosion of words, a whole shitstorm of anger and accusations to deal with when he got back to the motel with Ruby and Gabriel in tow. His nerves should be wrecked, but with Gabriel's thumb rubbing small circles just below the base of his skull, Sam really couldn't bring himself to care.

=0=

Ten minutes crawled by, then fifteen, then twenty. At the twenty-one minute mark, Dean was ready to climb the walls. Sam should have been back by now; he'd only gone for beer, not to stock up for the end of the world. Something had happened. Castiel seemed to share his worry, as he'd taken up a post beside the window and stood staring out into the night. Balthazar, in contrast, couldn't seem to care less, and was amusing himself flipping through the cable channels on TV, snarking about Hollywood types and their lack of acting ability. He wasn't even using the remote, the lazy shit.

Twenty-two minutes, and Dean was reaching for his gun, preparing to charge out of the room and hunt Sam down with his own two feet. That's when both Castiel's and Balthazar's heads snapped up and around at the exact same moment, orienting in the same direction. Dean glanced between them; both angels' eyes were distant, unfocussed. After a moment, Balthazar smirked and went back to the TV.

"Cas?" Dean wished his voice didn't sound so concerned and girly, but dammit, a man didn't think about keeping a deep tone when his brother was in some sort of trouble and the angels were staring like cats at the wall.

Castiel gave him one of his rare half-smiles. "Everything's fine, Dean. Sam and Gabriel are returning now."

Dean strode forward, grasped Castiel by the shoulder and forcibly turned him around. He ignored the fact that Castiel let him; he was in control here, after all. "What the hell happened?"

Castiel's brow creased, but his eyes didn't leave Dean's. "I don't know the details," he said. "Perhaps you should ask Sam when he returns. I only sensed Gabriel for a moment. He is…loud, when he wishes to be."

Dean growled, but let his grip loosen. Figured that midget arch-asshole was involved in this somehow. One more item to tack onto the list of things Gabriel needed to answer for. Dean idly wondered if he could get his hands on some holy oil in the next five minutes. A turkey needed cooking.

Castiel put his hand on Dean's shoulder, directly over the handprint he'd left there months before. "Dean," he said, "your brother will be fine."

Some of the tension drained away, no matter how desperately Dean tried to hold onto it. Castiel's hand was warm and soothing on his shoulder, spreading cool reassurance throughout his body. Despite himself, he relaxed. Felt better. Felt calmer. He just knew that the shit was going to hit the fan again when Sam and Gabriel walked through the door, because _something _had definitely happened, and he wanted to stay keyed up and vigilant enough to deal with it.

Apparently, Castiel had other ideas about his state of mind, because he left his hand right where it was, solid and reassuring. Fucking angels.

"Yeah," he muttered with no real bite to his tone. "We'll see."

=0=

Dean was so very glad Cas had defused him, because his blood pressure skyrocketed and his brain might have exploded when Sam and Gabriel came in with Ruby slung between them. He wasn't sure what to do first: hug Sam because he was okay, punch Sam because he was okay and Dean had worried for nothing, punch Gabriel for the laundry list of beefs Dean had with him, or gank Ruby on general principle. He settled on a stern, "What the fuck is this?!" Not as satisfying as hitting something, but it would do for now.

Sam flushed and guilt shot through his eyes. Dean had seen it enough to recognize it, even if Sam ducked his head and tried to hide it. "It isn't what it looks like."

Gabriel snorted loudly. "Sam, it's exactly what it looks like. Your brother's a grade A idiot, but he's not a stupid one."

"Shut it, midget," Dean said, jabbing a finger at Gabriel. "I'll get to you in a minute." He ignored Gabriel's mock-innocent _what-did-I-do_ face, and swung the finger at Sam. "Ruby, Sam? _Ruby_? After _everything _we've gone through, and talked about, you went back to _Ruby_?"

Sam's fists tightened, and so did the skin around his eyes. "I didn't go back to Ruby, Dean. I was driving to the damn store and she got in the car when I stopped at a red!"

Dean narrowed his eyes. That had to be the flimsiest excuse he'd ever heard. "Yeah? How'd she know where to find you?"

"I don't know, Dean. I didn't call her and tell her to meet me, if that's what you're implying!" Sam yanked something out of his coat and threw it. It whipped at his face and Dean threw up a hand to catch it reflexively. Hard plastic slapped into his palm with a sting that made him hiss. "Check my call log if you don't believe me."

Dean closed his fingers around the phone so tight the case popped. He opened his mouth to say something, he didn't know what—he rarely planned on getting into an argument with Sam, and forced himself to close it again. "Okay," he said.

Sam's eyebrows went up. "'Okay'?"

Dean rubbed his eyes with his finger and thumb. "Yeah, Sam. _Okay_. I believe you."

Sam obviously didn't believe him, and Dean saw the effort his brother made to keep his mouth shut. He had bitchface dialed to eleven and that muscle in his jaw was working overtime, but he didn't say a word. He just nodded once, a quick forward-back. Dean tossed him back his phone, feeling the weight of all the things they still had to say about this whole fucked-up situation. But they had later for that.

Dean turned to Gabriel, who was waiting as patiently as he ever did. Ruby had been dumped on the bed behind him, with Castiel and Balthazar standing on either side, eyeing the demon like hyperfocused cats, but Gabriel's attention was all on him. He'd had a version of the archdick in his head long to make him extremely wary of that occurrence, and it dawned on him that he might just want to be careful how he phrased things.

"You're an asshole." Eh, fuck it. Careful was for pussies.

Gabriel just arched an eyebrow, like Dean was telling him nothing he didn't already know. "And hello to you too, Dean. How exactly have I knotted your underroos lately?"

He'd practiced for this exact moment, written great castigating speeches in his head, practiced his lines in the mirror. But now that it was here, he had absolutely no idea of what to say. Over Gabriel's shoulder, he could see Balthazar helpfully pantomiming being poked in the forehead. His eyeteeth ground together.

"Fuck it," he muttered. "Just get it over with." And squeezed his eyes shut, screwed up his face in preparation.

No poke came. He cracked open one eye to see Balthazar's palm over his face, Sam and Castiel watching him with great confusion, and Gabriel eyeing him like he was a few sandwich artists short of a Subway.

"Use your words like a big boy," Gabriel said with exaggerated encouragement.

"You left a message for yourself in my head," Dean growled. "At least, that's what I _think _you did. You weren't exactly clear on the instructions. Because you're a douche."

"He wants you to poke him," Balthazar supplied helpfully.

"Ah." Gabriel's eyes shuttered and slid askance. "That alright with you, Sammy?"

There were a lot of things Dean really didn't need to know. Why a freaking archangel as opportunistic and self-centered as Gabriel was asking his brother's permission to rummage through Dean's skull was one of them. "Be my guest," was the answer, and there was enough of a chuckle in Sam's voice that Dean wanted to strangle him. Slowly. Dean shut his eyes tight again, and two fingertips lightly touched his forehead.

It was different this time. The original download was a confused burn of smells, sights, sounds and sensations. Balthazar's sorting had been methodical, organized and impersonal, reducing the chaos to order with discomfort and detachment. This time, it was just a message.

Dean couldn't understand a word of it, and he figured it's because it was in Enochian. Knowing the Trickster as he did _(way _too fucking well, of late), he half-suspected that it was all couched in dirty limericks. The angelic language sang through him, leaving his body shivery and awed. His brain went hot and white, but in a muffled, bearable way, and Gabriel inhaled quick and sharp. Then the fingers were gone from his forehead, and when Dean opened his eyes, the archangel's expression was inscrutable.

Then his hand came up again and flicked Dean on the nose.

"Ow!" Dean said, flinching back more out of reflex than anything else. "Bitch!"

Gabriel smirked. "Jerk," he said, sounding uncannily like Sam. "Sammy, pack your shit. We're going on a little trip."

"Do I have any say in this?" Even as he asked, Sam moved to close up his computer and shove his books into his backpack.

"Nope." Gabriel turned to his brothers, and all three of them stilled into living marble. There was a hum in the air, a pressure like just before a storm. They must be not-talking in that creepy fucking way only angels had. Dean exchanged glances with Sam, but his brother just shrugged, with no more idea of what was going on than Dean had.

Movement returned first to Balthazar, as he chewed on his inner cheek hesitantly. "If you're sure…" When Gabriel just nodded, Balthazar sighed. "So very glad I came out of retirement for this," he muttered, and he was gone.

"I don't like it." Castiel, gravelly and uncertain. "There is no other way?"

"Fraid not, bro."

"I don't like it," Castiel repeated, eyebrows and chin unhappy. "But I will do my duty."

"Good. Ready, Sam?"

"I… guess?" Sam shrugged his backpack onto his shoulder. "I don't even know where we're—" In the space between one word and the next, Gabriel and Sam had vanished.

"Hey!" Dean made an abortive attempt to snatch Sam back, but it was too late. He was gone. He rounded on Castiel, the only viable target for his rage left in the room. Well, and Ruby. Ooh, Ruby. That _was_ tempting. "Cass, you wanna fill me in?"

Castiel's jaw shifted. "Balthazar has gone to locate something that may aid us. Gabriel has taken Sam to perform a purification. And I am charged with the security of the prisoner," he added, with slight distaste and a disdainful glance at Ruby.

"I say we just off her. Bitch is more trouble than she's worth."

More unhappy eyebrows. "I cannot. I've been given a Command."

Yeah, he was totally ganking Gabriel the first opportunity he got. "I'm guessing it's not one you can ignore."

Castiel didn't move, but Dean could feel the shrug. "It's… reasonable. Ruby has information we need." He hesitated, and the next words came out in a rush, like he was confessing a dirty secret. "Jimmy agrees with my brother, which has its own influence I find difficult to ignore."

Dean rubbed his forehead, wondering exactly when he had lost control of everything. If he was being honest with himself, he figured it was right around the age of six. "Alright. If I can't talk you into ignoring the big feathery dickwad's orders…"

"You cannot."

Dean blew out a long breath. "…then we need somewhere secure, with access to containment, salt, silver and holy water. And there's only one place I know offhand like that."

Bobby was going to have an aneurysm.


	7. Feathered by the Moonlight Falling Down

**Author's Notes:** The word count just keeps growing and growing. I've done close to 7,000 today, and it's not over yet. Help!

Title for this chapter comes from "Murder of One", by Counting Crows, to continue the theme from the last chapter.

**Feathered By the Moonlight Falling Down**

"—going."

The transition had been so smooth, Sam didn't even realize they'd been moving until he was suddenly elsewhere, the cramped motel room replaced by a stretch of snow and ice and black sky above.

Gabriel stood a few feet away, hair silvered by moonlight. He had a wary, but pleased smile, his head tilted in a way that looked more like it belonged on Castiel. "Do you like it?" he asked.

His first thought was that Gabriel had transported him to the Arctic somewhere, or maybe Scandanavia. Sam turned slowly in place, the snow crunching weirdly underfoot. It was monochrome, and desolate, with swept mountains of smoky white ice, silver snow with striated bands of darker greys, pockmarked with wide craters and slashed with blues so pale they were almost colorless. The crescent sliver of an impossibly huge moon hung in the sky, and several incredibly bright stars drifted across the black. It was breathtaking in that alien, intimidating way only the most hostile, uninhabited places could have. "It's beautiful," he said honestly. "Where are we?"

"You're a partially-educated man, Samuel. Put that big, Stanford brain to good use." Gabriel grinned, practically dancing in place. "Guess."

Sam had always liked puzzles, and he was good at solving them too. It had started as a necessary part of the lifestyle, because a hunter who couldn't figure out riddles and traps often ended up dead or some monster's appetizer (and if said hunter was very, _very _lucky, it would be in that order), but it had grown into a genuine, pleasant hobby over the years.

Still, he hesitated, even though he wanted nothing more than to dive into it immediately. Gabriel might be an archangel, but he was also a Trickster. There had to be some rules to this game. He was almost a hundred percent sure Gabriel hadn't dragged him off to kill him in some messy, drawn-out fashion, because he could have just left him to Ruby's tender mercies if that was the case. But that didn't mean there weren't inherent dangers in the area.

"Can I ask you questions?"

"Mmhmm. Twenty of them, in fact. Well. Nineteen, now."

"Is it safe for me to move around?"

Gabriel nodded. "As long as you don't go too far. Say, ten yards or so. Eighteen questions."

Sam put his bag down and stamped experimentally on the ground beneath his feet. The snow crunched with an odd echo, almost a hiss. He blinked: snow wasn't supposed to do that. "Is this a real place, or is it something you whipped up special for me?"

"Real enough. Seventeen."

Sam sat back on his heels, pondering. This really didn't look like any place on Earth, but surely Gabriel wouldn't have dragged him off-planet… would he? Before he asked any more questions, he stood up and scanned the sky. The constellations were weird, slanted, askew. One point of light, far bigger and brighter than any star he'd seen, caught his attention. He studied it, and the moon, and the teal bluish unwinking light in the sky, but no insight jumped up.

He shook his head wryly. He'd started this all wrong. "Is it bigger than a breadbox?"

Gabriel's smile gleamed in the light from the moon. "Much bigger. And sixteen."

=0=

Not for the first time, Balthazar was regretting getting involved with his brothers and their bookend idiot Winchesters. At first, he had enjoyed his brother's company, and it had seemed like an interesting diversion in what was rapidly becoming a life filled with boredom and repetition to involve himself in the impending Apocalypse. Then, it was necessity: Jericho had been a long time ago, but the allowances Gabriel had made for him weighed heavily on his soul. His brother had turned a blind eye to some of his more blasphemous transgressions with mortal women, and left his children alive.

He _owed _him, because those children, and their children's children's children's children had gone on to shape the course of human evolution, by dint of the angelic Grace flowing in their veins, the raw charisma of their characters, the sheer forcefulness of their presence. Moreover, he had _hidden _them from Heaven. It was a debt heavier than life, more powerful than any other bond he'd formed in his long existence.

Gabriel had enabled a small handful of Nephilim to survive when he'd had every reason to destroy them, simply because he loved his brother. Balthazar might never repay that debt, but he had to at least make a good faith effort.

But this might be going a bit far.

He flickered away from the rubbish motel, and reappeared on the doorstep of a very ramshackle house. He _really_ didn't want to be here, because he'd spent so much of his time flying under the watchful eyes of Heaven, but that bloody debt compelled him to do as Gabriel asked. (It was easier to live with if he thought of it as compulsion, because Balthazar had spent a large chunk of his life waving to Doing the Right Thing as it passed him by.)

He took a deep breath, pasted a bright smile on his face and rang the doorbell. Time to beard the bloody lion in its den. He just hoped the lion didn't have friends in high places with huge teeth.

The door opened, and a disheveled man in a dirty bathrobe reeking of cheap booze poked his head out the door, peering blearily at Balthazar. "No solicitations," he mumbled, and started to close the door again.

Balthazar held his hand out, preventing the door from closing. The man stared uncomprehendingly at his hand, like he couldn't figure out what was preventing him from closing the door. "Mr. Shurley," Balthazar said pleasantly, "or Chuck, if you prefer. My name is Balthazar."

Chuck froze and slowly turned his head back around. His skin was white, bloodless, his eyes huge and round behind his smudged glasses. "Not possible," he said faintly. "I haven't even…"

"Oh, I assure you," Balthazar said in his politest, friendliest, most assuring tone, "I am quite real. I also go by the name Jegudiel. I've come seeking information about an item I had the charge of several millennia ago. I understand you're something of a prophet. It's a chest, about so high, so wide. It has items inside. A trumpet, some tablets, a sword, some foodstuffs. A few other bits of sundry. Don't suppose you know where it is, do you?"

Chuck continued to stare at him, until his eyes rolled up in his head and he fainted dead away, halfway over the doorjamb. Balthazar blinked for a long moment, then sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes, _totally_ worth coming out of retirement," he muttered, then bent to lift the prophet and drag him back inside his house.

=0=

Sam had whittled his theories down one by one. His perceptions had not been altered (question six), it was an entirely natural landscape (question seven), eminently hostile to him (question eight), but Gabriel was enabling him to survive (nine), and it was an immense distance for a human, but next door for an angel (a confusingly answered question ten).

His brain didn't want to process the next logical leap, but Sam was running out of options. He'd been following Gabriel as the angel tromped circuitous paths in the snow (carbon monoxide, water and nitrogen, question five), hyper-aware of his ten yard radius now that Gabriel had confirmed he was only alive because Gabriel wanted him to be. He took a deep breath, with the soul-chilling feeling that there by rights shouldn't be any air for him to breathe, and asked his next question: "Are we on Earth?"

Gabriel's smile grew imperceptibly wider. "I was wondering when you'd get to that," he said. "And no. We're not. Nine left."

The air rushed out of Sam's lungs. "Is that the Sun?" he asked weakly.

"Yes. Eight left."

Stanford didn't take in morons. Astrophysics wasn't his strong suit, but he knew enough basic astronomy to figure out the rough distances involved. Ice settled into the pit of his gut. "Is that teal dot in the sky Neptune?"

"Mmhmm. Seven."

"Pluto." His head swam dizzyingly, and his voice squeaked. "We're on Pluto."

"Ding ding ding! Give the man a prize! And with six questions left too, Sammy. I'm impressed."

He looked up at Gabriel, wondering when the archangel had gotten so much taller, and realized he'd sat down very abruptly in the snows of Pluto. _The snows of Pluto_. Hysteria bubbled up, and he started laughing. Or crying. Or both. He wasn't sure.

Cassini had just reached Saturn, and here he was, standing on the surface of Pluto with only a mercurial, moody, whimsical archangel for protection.

He couldn't breathe. Oh God. Gabriel had turned off whatever shield he had, and Sam was suffocating to death on a world two and a half billion miles from home. He couldn't breathe couldn't breathe couldn't breathe…

"Hey. Sam. _Sam_. Look at me." Warm fingers wrapped around his wrist, directly over the mark Gabriel had put on him, and the panic subsided enough for him to hitch in enough oxygen to kickstart hyperventilation, making his vision swim all over again. _Oxygen that shouldn't be there._ "I'm not going to let you die," Gabriel said with uncharacteristic solemnity. "I may be terrible, and cruel, and petty, but I'm not that much of a bastard."

The weird thing was, Sam believed him. Every rational neuron in his brain was shrieking that he was dead already, kept throwing around phrases like _explosive decompression _and _lack of oxygen_, but Sam had found a sudden and unexpected faith that contradicted logic and rationality. Warmth shot up through his arm, penetrating the terror of his lizard brain, and slowly, glacially, he calmed. His breathing slowed. The terror vanished like dew under the sun. And all the while, Gabriel knelt in the carbon snow, holding his arm, keeping a steady gaze locked with his own.

Finally, he nodded shakily, and Gabriel smiled. "Why Pluto?" he managed to choke out, and the act of speaking steadied him further. He gestured upwards and Gabriel stood, drawing him upright again. Logic dictated that his ass that long in snow that cold should have frozen him to death long before now, but Sam's jeans weren't even cool to the touch.

"Why not?" Gabriel asked lightly. "It's awesome, in case you haven't noticed." There was a weird look in his eyes, a startlingly human vulnerability that floored Sam to see. "You have five questions left, if you want them."

Sam knew the game was over. He'd guessed the correct answer, and that should have been the end of it. But the answer had raised so many other questions, he was grateful to Gabriel for the chance to get some of them answered. The thought that Gabriel wouldn't answer honestly never even crossed his mind.

The left side of his mouth curved up. "You answered my question with another question. I have six left, not five."

"Ooh, you're a crafty one. Bounce back rapidly too. Very few people could absorb 'Pluto' as their location, and snark like the best of them five minutes later."

"I'm a Winchester," he said with a one-shouldered shrug. "If it doesn't kill us outright, we adapt to it." Sad thing was, that was the truth. "I'll ask again. Why Pluto?"

For a moment, Gabriel didn't answer. He looked away, over the surreal tundra to the impossible moon hanging in the sky, to the far distant sun, far enough that it was no brighter than a sixty-watt bulb. "It's where I come to think, to be truly alone," he said finally. "It's quiet, and still, and dark. Not even the voices of the Host can penetrate here, clustered as they are around the Earth. It's perfect peace and solitude."

There was a deeper meaning in that last bit, and Sam's brow furrowed in thought as he tried to puzzle it out. He almost had it, but true grasp kept eluding him. He still had five questions, though. Maybe he could pinpoint it further. He thought about what Dean had told him, a confusion of travel to the future and the past, Lucifer rising out of his hole in the ground. That off-handed comment about Castiel's brothers wanting him to be the prom dress, even if it wasn't true. All the work Azazel and Ruby and probably the freaking angels in freaking Heaven had done to prepare him for the Morningstar anyway.

He had five questions. He only needed two.

"I'm not supposed to be Lucifer's vessel, am I?"

Gabriel had gone angel-still, golden eyes boring into his. "No," he said clearly. "You're not."

Sam smiled. He already knew the answer to this one, with his newfound perfect faith, but he was going to ask anyway. "You brought me here to make sure I never am, didn't you?"

Gabriel brought up his hand sideways, fingers tightly together, like he was about to karate-chop something. With an abrupt, downward thrust, he brought his palm level toward the ground, fingers splayed. The snow around Sam's feet writhed and shifted like something living, radiating outwards like a shockwave, an endless rumble on a lifeless world.

Gabriel brought two fingers to Sam's forehead, and Sam was abruptly hurtled into the air, getting a dizzying, zoom-out birds-eye view of what the archangel had just done. Enochian sigils spiraled out for hundreds of miles, intricate gouges dozens of feet deep in the unchanging snows of Pluto. Breathtakingly complex work surrounding the tiny figures of Gabriel and himself. Abruptly, he was back in his own head again, staggering at the immensity and intricacy of what he'd just seen.

Gabriel shone gold and white. "Yes, Sam," he said, and his voice rang like a bell. "I did."

=0=

Castiel was not comfortable with long car rides. To a being used to moving at the speed of thought, the forced inaction required to sit in a metal and rubber contraption that moved just above the speed of a glacier was akin to slow torture. But Gabriel's instructions had been very specific, and Gabriel still technically stood higher than Castiel in the Heirarchy.

Besides, it was hard to argue with instructions when they followed logical progressions.

_I'm taking Sam somewhere,_ Gabriel had told him, _and we're going to be gone for a while. Something I should have done already. You really want to halt the Apocalypse in its tracks, little brother? Keep Lucifer whining and squalling in his playpen?_

_Yes._ He hadn't even had to think about his answer. It was ingrained in him as deeply as his faith.

_Then you take charge of Ruby, get her and Dean somewhere safe. We're going to have questions for her. And don't rush about doing it; I have a feeling Sammy's gonna want to be there when she spills her guts. Figuratively _and _literally._

Logic meant he was to waste time until Gabriel brought Sam back from wherever he had taken him. Castiel could no longer sense him, even distantly, which meant that he had gone very far indeed.

Through the windshield (which was somewhat grimy, he noted, and debated cleaning it with a brush of his fingers, because he certainly didn't want Dean to miss something important while driving and end up in an accident because human beings were so fragile), he watched Dean leave the rental office and swing his duffel bag onto his shoulder. He was speaking into his phone with the other hand and, as he crossed the parking lot to open the back driver-side door and toss his bag in, Castiel caught fragments of his conversation.

"…don't know… midget just zapped him somewhere… Cass isn't talking…six hours or so…bringing Sam's special friend…no, the _other _special friend…angels crawling out of our asses now, Bobby… yeah. You too."

Castiel's mood darkened a little further. If this was going to be Dean's mood for the duration of the journey, he would enjoy it even less than he thought.

_Stop grumping like an old woman, Castiel_, Jimmy told him, stretching awake deep inside Castiel's mind. _You're worse than my mother-in-law._ _That old darling could find something to complain about if God Himself showed up on her doorstep._

_That isn't very charitable of you, James_, Castiel replied sternly.

_Lying is immoral, _Jimmy shot back cheekily. Not for the first time, Castiel wondered exactly how much influence the Winchesters could have had on someone they'd technically never met. Jimmy was not the same man he'd been prior to his becoming Castiel's vessel. He questioned more, he prodded more, he led Castiel down uncomfortable lines of thought. Rather like Dean did. And, to a lesser extent, Sam.

_Besides, _Jimmy continued, as if he wasn't aware of Castiel's line of thought (and maybe he wasn't; Castiel did not completely understand the symbiotic relationship between himself and his human host, did not completely understand how much either of them read from the other), _it's six hours alone with your Righteous Man. With the crowd that has been around you lately, with the crowd slated to descend again in the very near future, perhaps you should just take this time to enjoy his company._

_Ruby is in the trunk_, Castiel felt compelled to point out.

Jimmy snorted. _Tied up, unconscious, unable to move, talk or speak. She doesn't count. Moments like these, where you can just take pleasure in another's company without worry or fear for what's coming_

_Without worry or fear? Have you _met _Dean? _It was only after Jimmy started laughing softly in the back of his head that Castiel realized perhaps he, too, was less charitable than he thought.

=0=

"Will it hurt?"

Gabriel settled his hands on Sam's shoulders, wishing he had easy answers for him. There was childlike trust, the faith of an innocent in God, and Gabriel wished beyond all else he could lie to him. But they were beyond that now. Beyond Earth, beyond Heaven, beyond lies. Beyond Tricksters and angels and gods. Into deeper mysteries. Where even archangels feared to tread.

"Yes," he said, and positioned Sam exactly in the center of the immense spellwork he'd carved into the face of Pluto. He wasn't avoiding Sam's eyes. He was making sure Sam was just where he should be. Yeah. That was it.

Sam's hands covered his, and he glanced up, startled. Sam was afraid, that was easily readable. But there was confidence in him, and warmth and faith. "It's okay," he said. "I can take it."

Gabriel had no words for that level of trust. He simply nodded and stepped back. There was nothing left to do now; all the groundwork had been laid. Sam was ready. He was ready. Still, he hesitated.

"What is it?" Sam asked.

Gabriel sighed through his nose. "You can always say no to Lucifer," he said reluctantly. "Sam, I don't know if this will kill you, or me, or both of us. I've never done anything like this. I know it _can_ be done, I know _how _it's done, but I've never actually done it. And after it's done, things will be… different."

"Different how?"

Gabriel lifted his arms and shoulders in an expansive shrug. "You got me. But I know one thing: that mark on your wrist will be complete. The bond between your soul and my Grace will be complete. And Sam? There's no breaking something like that."

Sam watched him steadily, with a small smile. "Are you trying to give me an out?"

"Yeah. Guess I am."

Sam shook his head. "I don't want it. Don't need it. Gabriel, if I don't do this, I'll always be the boy with the demon blood who kickstarted the Apocalypse. I'll always be Lucifer's meatsuit. Always crave power I shouldn't have, or mess with. Besides, there are worse angels." The gentle teasing note took the insult out. "I mean, come on, Gabriel. You took me to _Pluto _on our first date. How is Lucifer really going to top that one?"

Gabriel laughed, and stepped back for real this time. "Sammy," he said, "don't ever change."

Sam smirked. "Any last words of advice?"

He blew out a breath. "Yeah. I have to subsume the vessel for this, do it as God made me. Might want to keep your eyes closed. I kinda like 'em in your head."

"Noted."

Now there really weren't any more excuses. With one last look at Sam, who stood in the center of Gabriel's spell with his head tilted back, his eyes closed, Gabriel flickered away, rematerializing high up in the thin atmosphere. He sucked in a breath he didn't need – reflex was hard to break – and unleashed his true nature.

He burned in the sky, a being of light and energy and sound and fury, and the illumination from his wings dawned over Pluto like a second sun. Beneath him, the lines and swirls of Enochian responded with a building glow of their own. The silver snows turned orange and red, flickering with blues and indigos and colors humans had no names for, a rainbow of shades painting the landscape as it had never been painted.

He gathered himself, orienting on the human standing so trustingly on the snow below. He'd been vague on the wherefores and the hithertos and Sam, bless him, hadn't pressed for details. All he said was that it would be a forceful merging of Grace and soul, to purify the deep stains, to heal the mortal scars.

He hadn't told Sam he was going to slam into him like a comet.

There were other methods, slower, less over the top. But Sam didn't have the time and Gabriel didn't have the leisure to set them up. Besides, fuck it. He was Gabriel, the motherfucking Messenger of the Almighty. If this didn't kill them, it was going to go down in history as the flashiest, most epic bonding of _all time_.

Before he could change his mind, he hurtled down, flashing at Sam at the speed of thought. Miracle of miracles, Sam still hadn't moved. Gabriel could only marvel: Sam was either the most trusting or the most self-destructive man he'd ever met. Probably a bit of both.

A hundred feet. Fifty. Twenty. Ten.

Five.

Sam's eyes snapped open, and Gabriel had a sudden shot of fear that Sam's eyes would burn out of his head. Or, when he saw what was coming for him, he would panic and move, and that really _would _kill them both.

He did neither. Instead of fleeing in terror, Sam opened his arms to catch him, embrace him, welcome him, and then there was an explosion of light as they smashed together on the deepest of metaphysical levels. A nuclear explosion of soul purity and angelic Grace. Gabriel could feel Sam screaming through every atom, every thought, every intention that made up his being, as the black streaks burned away in the heat of angelic fury. As the blood in his veins caught fire. As the stains in his mind dissolved with the sheer force of it.

Gabriel thought it would be one-sided, the cleansing.

Gabriel was wrong.

It started as a tickle in the space/time/math/music of his mind, a tickle that rapidly ramped into all-out agony that left him writhing, that left him shrieking, that as the very essence of _Sam _invaded the great shining hollow in his mind.

The trees in his mind, the forbidding forest someone else had stuffed in his head, the haunted woods marked with names he couldn't hear, burned to ash.


	8. Weightless and Almost Sane

**Author's Notes**: Title for the chapter comes from the lyrics of "One More Astronaut", by I Mother Earth.

And remember, folks: reviews in my inbox always make my day. (I don't withhold updates until I get reviews, but I'm not above asking for them. :)

**Weightless and Almost Sane**

_The archangel perched on the rickety kitchen chair, ruggedly handsome face drawn up in broodment. He had fallen far from his once-noble role in the grand scheme of things, from a Bearer of the Word to an embittered, purposeless shell of a seraphime. _

"I have _not_!" Balthazar scowled, fingers tightening on the pages in his hand. "I will not sit here and be insulted by a man who can't even spell 'seraphim'. And broodment isn't a word either, you illiterate hack."

_The man he'd come to see, the man with all the answers, was still unconscious. Balthazar knew that every moment that passed increased the chances of drawing down the wrath of his Heavenly brother, that awesome, unknowable, immense and terrifying being who had been guarding Chuck since birth… _

Looked like Raphael had been doing a little creative editing on the sly. "Awesome, unknowable, immense and terrifying" his luscious left cheek.

_He wasn't here to hurt the prophet, only to obtain information, but Raphael was notoriously short-tempered when it came to his duty, and if he noticed Balthazar sitting in Chuck's kitchen, he might take exception. _

_His thin fingers tightened on the pages in his hand, excerpts from the prophet's next great work, sneering at them. He didn't think very highly of the Man with the Answers, which was clear from his derision over word choices and his muttered, "Illiterate hack."_

_Maybe part of his aversion to the work was how accurate it was. It was all laid out there in black and white, except where it had been smudged by fingerprints. The duties his brother still held, where he had turned his back. The sins his brothers had covered up for him, weighed like bricks on his soul._

Balthazar's jaw dropped. "I do—I have-I will - I bloody hate prophets," he muttered, balling that page up and tossing it onto the table. He debated burning the whole thing entirely, because anything that painted him in that ridiculous an image needed eradication. Right, he was trying to avoid drawing Raphael's attention. No personal Guy Fawkes for him, then.

"Bugger this." He stood from the rickety chair, and strode with purpose – _with _purpose_, you shallow-minded fribble -_ Balthazar went into the living room, stepping cautiously around the detritus of a wasted life. Balthazar grimaced as he delicately lifted his foot over an army of whiskey bottles and wrinkled his nose as it came down on a discarded fast food wrapper with a greasy crinkle. Standards for prophets had fallen sharply since the last time he'd been the personal shoulder-angel of one.

Balthazar wondered if he should contact the producers of that hoarding show, and stage an intervention.

Screw it. The prophet wasn't under his care.

Chuck remained exactly where Balthazar had dumped him, mouth agape and eyes flickering rapidly under his closed eyelids. Balthazar's grimace was becoming a permanent fixture on his face, no doubt gouging permanent, hideous lines in his otherwise perfect complexion. He rubbed his thumb across the fingers of his right hand before sighing. Unless he wanted to dump a bucket of cold water over the bastard, and the Father only knew but Raphael might take that as an attack, there was only one way of waking the sorry, soggy sot.

With all the care of a man lifting a pair of someone else's soiled underwear, Balthazar gingerly reached out and tapped Chuck with his fingertips.

_…man and angel burning together, each other's name a sigh on their lips, inhibitions stripped as bare as their skin…_

"There are _things_ I do _not _need to _see_!" he howled, yanking his hand from the prophet's forehead as if scalded, and Chuck jolted awake so ferociously he threw himself right off the couch. Balthazar reeled back, tripping over some bit of detritus or another. He flailed backwards into a pile of laundry that had for some reason been thrown in the middle of the floor.

There was a groan from the prophet, and Balthazar counted slowly to ten in every language he knew. Which was all of them. It didn't help. "What is seen," Chuck said hazily, pushing himself up on his hands and feeling around for his glasses, "cannot be unseen."

Balthazar struggled to free himself from the clinging, dirty clothes, but gave up halfway there and snapped himself back upright. His attachment to the idea of not drawing Raphael's attention was quickly losing ground. After all this, he might just end up smiting Chuck into a smear where he lay in his dirty, sad bathrobe.

Being smote in return would be _oh so very worth it._

Driven beyond the end of his admittedly small well of patience, he reached down and hauled Chuck back to his feet, brushing his shoulders off with perfunctory flicks of his fingers. "Prophet, my time here is limited. I have neither the leisure nor the luxury of waiting on your power naps."

Chuck was a study in utter dejection and absolute misery. And fear. Oh, there was a healthy dose of fear in there too. Not even Paul on the road to Damascus could have missed the fear. It suddenly occurred to Balthazar that perhaps this sad little man really had no idea of what he was, and what his books represented. Maybe it wasn't the standards for prophets that had fallen. Maybe it was the standards for guardian angels that were in the shitter.

Balthazar rested his chin on his thumb, forefinger tapping the tip of his nose. "I don't really have the time for your awkward self-revelations either, Mr. Shurley," he said finally. "But what the hell. It's only the world coming to pieces as we stand here and chat."

Chuck looked down and shuffled his feet. "Sorry," he mumbled, rubbing at his head with the palm of his hand. "I'm obviously having some sort of a psychotic break. Characters coming to life and angels doing things angels never, ever do, and…"

No. _No_. He was _not _going to get dragged into this pathetic mudmonkey's sob story. He was on the clock, dammit. "That's all well and fine," he said with a strained smile, "but I'm really only here about the box."

"The box?" Chuck blinked at him owlishly. "The box." Then the haze cleared and he shook his head forcefully. "No, no, no. That's a bad idea. It's a very bad idea."

Balthazar's nerves began fraying all over again. He could tell, because his cheeks were hurting from how bright his smile got. "I live for bad ideas, darling. They're the most fun."

"No, you don't understand." With his hands fluttering in the air like drowning rabbits, he trotted towards the kitchen, snatching up the scattered pages as he went, discarding them almost as rapidly. He grabbed at another batch, peered at the top sheet, and came back. He thrust it at Balthazar. "Three nights ago, I woke up with a migraine, and this—" He gestured at it, then swiped that hand down his face, gnawing on his thumb. "This is what I wrote."

Balthazar arched an eyebrow, then took the pages from his hand.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Chuck continued to babble, as Balthazar read through the pages. "I mean, I'm not used to juggling so many characters around Sam and Dean. Shedding one here and there… comic book writers do it all the time!"

It was only two and a half single-spaced pages. Only several hundred words. But Father Almighty, what had been packed into that meager number. "It's not where I left it," he said, because out of all the things he _could _say, that was the least dangerous.

Chuck shook his head, almost vibrating it off his shoulders. "It was in Babylon for a while, but then the cult of Marduk took it out of the city before it was destroyed. It changed hands a few times, until it ended up in India. Then, it just vanished." He swallowed hard. "Until I saw where it was three days ago."

Balthazar stilled and glanced back down at the pages. "How accurate is this… literature?"

Chuck shook his head. "You tell me, Jegudiel. Are prophets ever wrong?"

"We need the box." Dammit, why was his voice shaking?

Chuck raised his head and, though there was still misery and fear and confusion painted in every line of his face, his gaze was steady and sure. "If you go after it," he said, "one of you will die."

"Which one of us?"

"I don't know," Chuck said softly and chewed on the knuckle of his thumb.

=0=

Dean was getting a little creeped by Castiel. For the last hundred miles, the angel had been staring at him, and Dean didn't think he'd blinked once in all that time. He'd tried to strike up conversation a few times, but Castiel's answers had been flat and monosyllabic. Was Ruby safe back there, with all the weapons? _I've got my eye on her._ Do you think we can really stop the Apocalypse, Cass? _I don't know, Dean_. Are you okay, Cass? You're acting weird. _I'm fine, Dean._

Dean drummed his fingers on the rim of the steering wheel. The silence under the steady bass of Metallica was driving him up the frickin' wall. "Alright, man, you gotta say something, because this not-talking thing is killing me here."

Castiel's head swiveled. "I don't understand. I thought you valued the quiet of… road trips."

Dean shot him an incredulous look before returning his attention to the road. "This isn't a road trip, Cass. Those come with apple pie and Sam girling it up with long chats about his feelings and the excitement of a new job. They don't come with demons locked in the trunk, a brother God only knows where with a featherhead known for killing people in amusing and creative ways, and an Apocalypse hanging over our freaking heads."

"Then what would you call it?"

"I dunno, Cass. A necessary evil, maybe."

Cass's head swiveled away again. "You shouldn't disparage Gabriel," he said, changing the subject so randomly it threw Dean for a moment.

"What?"

"You shouldn't disparage Gabriel," Castiel repeated, staring out the window as the miles rolled on. "I know what you think of him. I know what cause he's given you to think such things. To be fair, I will admit that I thought them myself, and worse. Coward, runaway, traitor. A disappointment. A doubter. Fallen. But he is not these things, Dean. And you did not allow me to disparage your brother, though he drank of the blood of demons and utilized powers no man was meant to have. Therefore, you should not disparage Gabriel."

It was the longest lecture Castiel had given Dean to date. Normally, he kept things short, sweet and to the point, which was how Dean liked them. Sam was the big talker in the Winchester family whereas Dean thought talking only got in the way of the adrenaline-pumping exciting parts. Obviously, it was something Castiel felt very strongly about, so Dean swallowed his first instinct—to tell Castiel he didn't know what he was talking about—and just nodded. He really didn't want to spend the next few hours discussing the pint-sized sadist, but hell, whatever got Cass talking was fine by him. Sort of. "What changed your mind?"

Castiel was silent for a long time, so long Dean thought the conversation was over. Then, he answered with a question of his own. "What changed yours, in regards to Sam?"

Dean had asked himself the same question over and over again since he'd crawled out of a pine box and learned exactly what Sammy had gotten up to in his absence – _both _versions, including the one that Raphael had tried to blot from existence. He had no good answer, no sane and dependable reason. Except for: "He's my brother," Dean replied, and shrugged. "I just did."

Castiel nodded slowly. "As Gabriel is my brother. So I… just did."

Dean thought about it for a while, then nodded. "Alright," he said. "That's fair. I won't talk shit about the little shit."

"Dean…"

He raised a hand off the wheel in surrender. "Last time, I swear."

In the reflection bouncing off the windshield, Dean saw Cass smile faintly. "Thank you."

Silence fell again, but now Dean had a thread to stitch more conversation together. Even though he already knew the answer, he was going to ask anyway. "Got any more brothers or sisters?"

"Millions."

Ah, back to one-word answers. But Dean was nothing if not pushy and obnoxious, now that he'd gotten a taste of Cass's chatty side. "Tell me about them."

"To speak of them all would take up more time than your mortal lifespan allows."

"Just the favorites, then. And don't give me any crap about how you're an angel and you're not supposed to have favorites. Everyone has favorites. So tell me about them."

"Why?"

"Because I want to know. You had a…a… a garrison, right?" Castiel nodded. "So tell me about that. Tell me about the other angels you hung with up in Heaven."

Another moment where Dean thought Castiel would remain obstinate and silent, but slowly, he began talking. As the miles rolled away in road markers and highway signs, Castiel told Dean about Balthazar and Inias and Anna and Rachel and Uriel and Zachariah. He spoke of their amazement with humanity, the ennui, the tedium of watching humanity without any interaction whatsoever.

Truth be told, it was boring as hell, but Dean didn't focus on the words. He focused on the sound of Castiel's voice, deep and rhythmic. The sentiment of love and respect and fear and disappointment behind each of his stories. The wistful note he might not have meant to inject in his words, but did anyway. Dean shifted more comfortably in his seat, smiling and making appropriate-sounding noises at the proper intervals as Castiel talked the rest of the drive away.

=0=

Trees. Forbidding, dark, dense. Twilight in the sky. The scent of fire on the wind, thick with smoke. No birdsong, no animal sounds, no noise of any kind, except the wind hissing words he couldn't quite hear. The glade was small, hedged with massive redwoods, and Sam stood alone in the center of it.

His breath steamed into the air in a visible plume, and ice rimed the branches hanging in threatening, ominous forks overhead, but he didn't feel the cold. He was burning up, generating such impossible heat the air shimmered around him like pavement in summer. He spread his fingers before his eyes, marveling at the visible waves rising from his fingertips.

He should be afraid. The forest around him emanated malice and hostility; it was almost palpable, a taste on the tongue the flavor of lightning and pain. He could feel the forest's aura edging up against him, flowing over and around him, trying to seep into his bones, scar his soul. But it slid off him, unable to touch him.

His wrist burned.

_Sam._

His name reverberated throughout the forest, echoing oddly in the silence. He looked around, straining to discern a direction, but couldn't. The echo called to something inside him, tugging irresistibly. He followed it, passing a tree close enough to brush it with his wrist. "Hello?" he called

_Sam._

The voice was familiar, nagging at the back of his head, but he couldn't place it. Frustrated, he charged headlong through the trees, bouncing off them with his hands, using their trunks to propel himself forward, to catch himself from the roots and brush that tried to tangle his feet.

Without warning, he burst into a clearing and was suddenly elsewhere. _His own face, twisted with rage and grief. His arms outstretched, clasping someone's shoulders, mouth turned into a bitter grimace. "Then what good are you?" he asked, and yanked his hands away._

It was only that flash, that tiny fragment of truth, and it was gone. Sam stood blinking in the clearing, which might have been the same one he started in. He took a step and something dug into the meat of his foot.

_Sam_.

It might have been his imagination, but it sounded like the voice was a little stronger. The name that belonged to that voice was on the tip of his tongue, dancing just out of reach. "I'm coming!" he called, and moved back into the trees.

He found clearing after clearing, stumbling into them half by chance. Each one was accompanied by a snippet of memory, a brief window into someone else's mind. A man against a chain-link fence, his face slowly sliding into another. Himself, sleeping. Dean and him in the car, viewed from the back seat, arguing about how to get the Colt and how to get Dean out of his contract. On and on, scene after scene, all a part of some greater whole that Sam was beginning to believe had been shattered and scattered here in the forest. And every time, the voice called him on, urged him further, as the burning in his wrist crept further and further up his arm.

_Sam._

The fire scent was stronger now, unbearable and overpowering. The atmosphere of the forest grew more oppressive, with branches rattling and leaves snapping, but the voice calling to him rang strong and true, and Sam narrowed his focus down to following just that sound. Smoke caressed his shoulders, his skin so hot he knew he should be dead.

He stumbled into another clearing, and into the motel room he and Dean had rented the night before he died. And finally, he knew who had been calling to him.

Gabriel stood in the middle of the room, hands in his pockets, head cocked to the side, sardonic smile firmly in place. "You took your sweet-ass time, sasquatch," he said, and held out a hand.

"You didn't make it easy," Sam replied and, with a dawning smile of his own, strode forward two paces and clasped Gabriel's hand.

The burn screamed up his arm, and the world washed away in flames.

=0=

Sam blinked, long and slow. It took him a long time to remember his own name, let alone where he was supposed to be or why he was supposed to be there. It came back to him in snippets and flashes. Silver-white snow. A dim, distant sun in the sky. Pain, like nothing he'd ever felt before. A forest. Motels and cars and town streets. Gabriel.

_Gabriel_.

Sam jerked upright, immediately regretting it as pain shot through his back, his shoulders, his _everything_. Nausea rose in his throat, tasting like bile and lunch. He wasn't going to vomit, though. He was not going to be the first human to vomit on Pluto. He set his head between his knees and breathed through it, concentrating not on how he shouldn't be able to breathe at all, but on keeping it steady and even.

When he felt like he could raise his head without it spinning, he looked up and around for the erstwhile archangel. He didn't have to look far. Gabriel sprawled in the snow beside him, loose-limbed and unconscious, with one hand stretched toward Sam.

With the careful movements of a man three times his age, Sam reached out and gently shook Gabriel's shoulder. His voice didn't want to work the first couple of times, but he got it functioning after swalloign hard and coughing. "Hey," he rasped. "Gabriel. Wake up."

Gabriel stirred, lifting his head out of the snow and cracking an eye. "Don' wanna," he mumbled, and the eyelid slid down again.

Sam shook him a little harder, but had to stop when his vision threatened to go black. "You're my ride home," he said, and resorted to poking an arm, which was infinitely less intensive an activity than all-out shaking. "You have to get up."

Gabriel opened his eye again, stared balefully at Sam for a long moment. "Ow."

Sam could empathize. "Tell me about it."

Gabriel pushed up on his hands and knees, and flopped onto his backside. "Remind me to never do that again," he groaned, rubbing his temples with his fingers. "I have a migraine. Do you know how hard it is for angels to get migraines?"

"I'm guessing you can't just pop down to the drug store for some extra-strength Tylenol, huh?" Sam

"They don't sell angel-strength painkillers at CVS, kiddo. We're such an untapped market." He reached out and thumped a hand on Sam's shoulder. "You're a moron. I told you to keep your damned eyes shut. You're lucky they didn't flash-fry in their sockets. What were you thinking, pulling a stunt like that?"

"Wow Dean," Sam said dryly. "You look a lot shorter than usual." Gabriel swatted him again, and Sam flinched, even though it didn't really hurt. "Ow. I don't know. I just… had a feeling that it would be okay. Like a voice in my head, just for a moment, saying I could."

"Even in the supernatural world, hearing voices isn't a good sign."

"Did you just steal a line from Harry Potter?"

Gabriel's grin was sudden and bright. "Why yes, I did. Thank you for noticing. So?"

"So what?"

Gabriel huffed. "How did I look?"

If there was one way Sam could describe that confusing, exhilarating twist of terror and awe, wonder and fright, watching an archangel unleashed and screaming through the sky, it was by quoting Gibran: "Like eternity gazing at itself in a mirror."

Gabriel's smile softened. "Aw, Sam. You say the sweetest things." Before Sam could do more than turn red, he stood up with another heartfelt groan. "We should get back. Dean's already going to ram something hard and pointed into me for hauling your ass to Pluto as it is. If we're late for the demon interrogation, he'll Molotov me with holy fire too. It's harder to come back from that."

A flash of irrational jealousy and possessiveness flashed through Sam at the innuendo, and Gabriel looked startled. "Huh," he said. "Okay. No off-color comments about the brother. Ground rule number three. So… You ready to get offa this rock?"

"Yeah. Just…" He trailed off, looking around at the ice and snow and mountains and sky. He would never see it again, so he spent a few moments drinking in as much as he could. As terrifying a location as it was, it was also one of the most beautiful places Sam had ever seen, and he wanted to make sure he remembered it.

Gabriel's voice was wistful, fond. "Really sinks her cold, icy teeth into you, doesn't she?"

Sam nodded, memorizing the star patterns and reaching out to snag his backpack by the strap. Then, he turned his gaze to Gabriel. "I'm ready."

"I can always bring you back, if you wanted," Gabriel said, reaching down to catch Sam's hand and haul him onto his feet.

Sam shuddered and shouldered his pack. "No thanks. Once was amazing, but it'll have to be enough. Besides, there's enough crap on Earth to keep me busy. I don't need to go looking for trouble on other planets."


	9. There's A Storm Moving In

**Author's Note**: Merry Christmas! Blessed solstice! Joyous Kwanzaa! Whichever your holiday, I hope you have a very happy one! (PS- Coffee got me through this, because between visiting relatives, children and presents, and work-related stuff (like work), I'm pretty well knackered. I apologize in advance for any incoherency in the narrative or slip-of-characterization. It all made sense in my head.)

Title for the chapter comes from the lyrics of "The Thunder Rolls", by Garth Brooks.

**There's A Storm Moving In**

Bobby Singer had been through the trenches. He had been hunting a long, long time, and there wasn't much under the sun he hadn't seen. It started with demons, but demons were only the tip of the iceberg. By the time he'd semi-retired to man phones and translate lore older than dirt, he had shapeshifters of every stripe, demons, ghosts, ghouls, zombies, skinwalkers, witches, warlocks, rogue hunters and even a pagan god or three under his belt.

But angels? Angels made it a whole new ball game.

He sat onto the porch swing with a beer in hand while he waited for the Impala to arrive. Dean warned him he was bringing company, but Bobby had no idea how to prepare a house to be invaded by angels. _Banishing sigils_ came to mind readily, but that wasn't exactly rolling out the welcome wagon now, was it? Angels set his teeth on edge. They were cagey and hard to kill, and if you met one you didn't know, he'd be just as likely to kill you as call you friend.

But if it saved his boys – and they were just as much _his _boys as they were John's; hell, he'd done enough to raise them over the years to qualify as their father – he'd welcome them into his home and serve them tea and crumpets on his dead wife's best china.

He swigged back on the bottle, made a face and set it to the side. Warm. He heard the crunch of gravel under tires from the front of the lot; none of his regular customers ever came in this late and besides, the lot was closed. Could only be Dean, possibly Sam, and up to three angels.

Christ. It was getting entirely too weird around here lately. He pulled his hip flask from his pocket and took a belt of fortification. Balls, but he was too old for this shit anymore.

He greeted Castiel pleasantly enough, but Bobby sort of liked him anyway. Castiel always said what he meant, didn't try to screw around with Bobby's head, and generally kept quiet unless he had something worthwhile to add. He hauled Dean in for a backslapper of a hug, being of the mindset that yes, it was touchy-feely crap, but with the lifestyle they all lived, he might be dead before he get another chance.

He was secretly pleased that Dean slapped him right back, thumping his shoulder with a fist in the embrace. "Hey Bobby," he said after pulling back. "Sam's not here, is he?"

Bobby shook his head. "Not yet," he said. "Should we be worryin'?"

Dean grimaced. "He's with Gabriel," he said, then abruptly snapped his mouth shut as Castiel tilted his head. "So I'm sure he's perfectly fine," he finished with a forced, bright smile. Bobby thought Castiel looked slightly pleased at the answer. Dean scowled at Castiel, who ignored it effortlessly.

Bobby really didn't want to know. "You said you got a demon with you?" he asked instead.

Dean nodded grimly, but it was Castiel who answered. "Indeed. Ruby is the demon who led Sam astray, and addicted him to the power of her blood. Gabriel commanded me to bring her somewhere secure for questioning."

Bobby was _so _glad to know he was the go-to guy for demonic prisons, but he didn't share that sentiment. Dean already knew how he felt about the whole sorry mess, and Castiel didn't usually get sarcasm. Wasted words to speak them now. "Well, let's get her inside. I'll feel better once we have her tucked into the panic room."

"You and me both," Dean said with a heartfelt nod, and went to pop the trunk.

=0=

Despite there being somewhere they really needed to be, Sam insisted Gabriel take him to the diner just outside Sioux Falls. It was a ritual he had; whenever he and Dean came home to Bobby's, they stopped into the mom-and-pop diner that had stayed stubbornly open since they were kids to get a meal and pie. He doubted Dean would have stopped, or would stop if he wasn't in town already, but the ritual had always meant more to Sam than it had to Dean. It was official acknowledgement that he had a home to go to, and he was heading that way.

Sam checked the door with his hip, bumping it open as he balanced a tower of to-go boxes, bags of pie hanging off his wrist. Gabriel, who had been waiting outside for him, just arched an eyebrow. "Hungry, are we?"

"Starving," he said honestly, and dumped the entire stack in Gabriel's startled hands before taking half of them back. "Whatever it was you did up there really took a lot out of me." He was wincing at the solid opening he'd given Gabriel even before he saw the salacious grin.

"Sam, you have no idea what I could take out of you."

He made a face, the one Dean fondly called Bitchface Number Eleven. Mild disgust with a side order of shock. "Oh god. Must you?"

Gabriel nodded. "I really must, and don't bring Dad into this. Now, are you done turning me into a pack mule, or do you have more shopping you'd like to do before we get this party started?"

Sam considered the stack of styrofoam for a long minute. Bobby would have more than enough moonshine and whiskey squirreled away in the house to drown a pack of wendigos, and he'd just taken care of whatever food they'd need. Bobby could do a lot of things, but cook wasn't one of them. If he couldn't nuke it or barbecue it, he usually didn't bother. "We're good. Let's go."

"Finally," Gabriel grumbled, but he was careful as he shifted the containers into one hand, pressed the other to Sam's forehead, and took them away.

=0=

Balthazar hadn't had much work ethic since he'd been the Archangel of it, but he applied himself to reading as much of the prophet's horribly mangled literature as he could. Most of it was the badly-spelled natterings of a madman, but there were a few gems that jumped out at him.

He packed Chuck off into the shower, partly because he smelled like booze but mostly to get him to stop hovering over Balthazar's shoulder, fretting like Lucifer with a hangnail. He cleaned the apartment with a quick snap of his fingers because, even though he didn't want Chuck to get the idea he gave a damn (because he didn't), he also didn't want to sit in squalor while he scanned through the scribblings.

He'd just have to put off that call to A&E, he supposed.

He discarded page after page, and finally delved into the files on Chuck's computer. Far be it for him to do it the slow, human way, he called on those old ties of energy and lightning, laid two fingers on top of the infernal device and rummaged through the data at the speed of thought. There was entirely too many chapters of Dean's sexual conquests, though he supposed it boded well for Cassie's love life in the future.

Finally, he'd dredged every iota of potentially useful information he could. Still nothing about whose head was on the chopping block in the near future. Bloody prophets, not nearly as useful as one would expect. He heard the water shut off upstairs, and glanced up before making a face. Chuck would be down soon, staring at him with those disbelieving, sad eyes, chock full of knowledge he could neither share nor make sense of until the time was right.

More than time for him to depart. But first, a small bit of revenge. He owed the prophet for his horrid descriptive abilities.

With a grin that would have made Lucifer himself pause, Balthazar laid his hand back on the computer tower, closing his eyes as he accessed Chuck's browsing history. He'd been on Earth long enough to understand the power and value of the Internet, and today, that knowledge would pay off in spades.

In minutes, he'd found what he was looking for, and his revenge was complete. He smiled a vicious little smile and disappeared in a flap of feathers as he heard Chuck's foot fall on the top step, hurrying downward. Purposeless layabout, _indeed_.

=0=

Becky tossed her bag down, shrugged out of her jacket and immediately slid into the chair in front of her computer. Work had sucked the big one, but she was home now, and the fandom called. She rolled her shoulders, dragged her keyboard close and got to typing.

The scene had been drifting through her head all day, consuming her thoughts while she dealt with entitled customers and angry managers. Only thoughts of her beloved OTP and her fics kept her sane. A tough demon, the rain pouring from the sky, and a conveniently placed barn.

She chewed on her lip as she typed, describing in loving detail the way Sam's fingers traced over Dean's clavicle, the huskiness of their voices, the raw masculinity of their well-defined muscles. She had to stop to fan herself with a stack of printer paper. God, was there a hotter pairing?

She poured herself into her writing, only taking a break when her stomach threatened to eat itself from the inside out. She made and wolfed down a sandwich while she did admin work on , approving several new memberships and scanning the boards for interesting-looking threads. The fandom was small, but growing, and she was always pleased to see new blood joining up.

Her email client chirped at her just as she was about to log off and return to the steamy barn in the non-descript, rainy Midwest where Sam and Dean had just gotten to the shirtless stage. She hesitated for a moment, then decided the more-than-brothers could wait for a few more moments while she checked her messages. Maybe one of her subscribed fics had a new chapter. Or better! Maybe someone had reviewed one of her fics!

The header at the top of the list made her heart stop.

_From: Carver Edlund. Subject: To My Number One Fan_

No freaking way. This had to be a joke. Deansgirl69 or xxbl00dyR0s3xx had to have sent it. There was no way on Earth Carver Edlund – Carver _Edlund_! – had sent her a message. Already half-convinced it was just a prank, she opened the email.

_Dearest Becky,_

_Or do you prefer samlicker81? It's come to my attention that you're my biggest fan, and even though I know you're asking yourself right now, "Why would Carver Edlund email me out of the blue?", just bear with me, and I can set your mind at ease…._

=0=

No matter what Dean did, he couldn't get through the ropes that bound Ruby literally to her eyeballs. He had searched several times for a knot, but there was nary a one to be seen. The coils refused to budge, remaining exactly as they were no matter how much force was applied. Knives slid right off the rope, and Castiel claimed he had neither the knowledge nor the juice to break through Gabriel's spellwork. Dean stood back, scratching his head at it. Dammit, now he had to wait for the midget to appear before he could get any answers out of her.

The bitch had either woken up, or given up faking it. Dean wasn't sure which. She was glaring daggers at Dean, Cas and Bobby, and Dean was fairly certain she'd be turning the air blue with her string of invectives, if only she didn't have a mouthful of rope to muffle it.

Bobby stumped up behind Dean. "Sam and his angel just showed up," he said. "Brought food from the diner too. They're upstairs."

"Good," Dean said, checking for the umpteenth time that the devil's trap was still solid and holding, that the permanent lines hadn't been broken by scrapes or damage. Then he paused. "Sam brought food?"

"Yup. From Sue's."

"Is there pie?"

Bobby scowled. "Do I look like Miss Cleo to you? Go find out for your own damn self."

It was the best idea Dean'd heard all night. Even though it repulsed him, he patted Ruby on the head. "Sit tight, sweetheart," he said. "We'll be back later."

Even though Ruby couldn't move, couldn't talk, couldn't so much as kill a bug in her current state, Dean made very, very sure the panic room was closed tight and triple-locked before he went upstairs.

=0=

To Castiel's eyes, Gabriel had changed.

He had only seen him, and sensed him, several hours ago, but he had been all but invisible to what the Winchesters referred to as Angel Radio. Castiel assumed it had come from many, many years subsumed in the persona of a Trickster god, blanketing Grace under heresy and paganism. He was a far cry from the gentle but firm archangel Castiel had known so briefly in Heaven. Castiel hadn't liked it, but Gabriel was his brother, so he accepted it.

Now, Gabriel radiated all the authority and glory he once had, throwing it off in ribbons and streamers that coiled and furled throughout the room. It was invisible to human eyes, but Castiel saw it clear as dawn, and fidgeted through the urge to bask in the presence, as he had once drunk the radiance of the empty Throne. It was hard to judge himself against a human, or even a creature of the night, differently strengthed than the warriors of the Almighty. But standing in the same room as Gabriel, well… It only solidified his suspicions that he was Falling.

He had come to that disturbing realization in the third hour of their five-hour drive, regaling Dean with memories of his former life with the garrison, the first time he had been forced to compare himself as he now was to how he had once been. It was the only conclusion that made any sense. He wasn't sure when the Falling had started, even with perfect memory recall, but he supposed if he had to wager a guess, it would be when he started paying more attention to Jimmy, and Dean, than he did to his standing orders.

He didn't think he would mind so much, being human. Humans were resourceful, resilient, even when beaten and bloodied. He had even started on the road to acceptance, because Falling only went one of two ways. Either the angel repented and returned to full glory, or they continued as they were going, and diminished in every way that mattered.

His second epiphany of the day was that he didn't want to Fall.

He hedged for a moment, before throwing all caution to the wind and reaching out to brush against one of the ribbons ghosting through the room.

Gabriel stiffened and shot a look over his shoulder at him. Castiel, chastened, hunched his shoulders and withdrew. But Gabriel just smiled and turned back to helping Sam set out the foodstuffs they had shown up with, then turned around and, with his hands in his pockets, sauntered towards him.

"Batteries running a little dry, Fisher-Price?"

"I don't understand that reference."

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "Yes you do. You just don't want to admit it."

"My grace is depleting," Castiel admitted grudgingly. "It's becoming a problem."

"I'll say." Gabriel's gaze was frank and assessing. "You keep performing miracles at the rate you have, and you'll be completely tapped out by the end of the month."

There was no point denying it. Gabriel spoke the truth. "Yes."

Gabriel softened, just a little, around the eyes. "Oh, Cassie," he said. "Castiel. Thursday's child. What _are _they teaching in schools nowadays? I suppose that's what happens when there's no exchange program for two thousand years; everyone just up and forgets how to survive in foreign lands."

"You're a seraphim," Castiel pointed out. "The rules are different for you."

An eyebrow quirked up. Gabriel looked highly amused. "Are they? You sure Dad just didn't make me as a standard angel, dial me up to eleven, and tack on a few extra feathers?"

Castiel sighed and turned to stare morosely out of the nearby window. The view was of the junkyard, not his first choice for thoughtful vistas. "I don't know what to believe anymore, Gabriel."

He was nearly thrown into the window when Gabriel slapped him on the back with a hearty cheer. "Well! Welcome to reality, little brother. No one knows what the fuck's going on pretty much all of the time. Congratulations; you've become part of the masses. I've never been prouder."

Castiel snarled silently. "I am Falling, Gabriel, and you are making jokes about it." Why did he think Gabriel would have any answers? He'd been lulled by the feel of him, so like the Archangel of old, but this Gabriel was darker, different. A whole new being. He turned to walk away, unwilling to continue the conversation, but Gabriel's hand on his shoulder turned him back around.

"Hey." Gabriel wasn't laughing at him now. "You're not Falling, Castiel."

"I _am, _" Castiel insisted. "There's no other explana—"

"_Shut up_." It was a Command, imbued with a seraphim's authority. Castiel could no more ignore it than he could ignore his faith. He shut up, teeth clicking together on the last syllable. "Let me finish. I know what Falling looks like. Hell, I had ringside seats to Luci's temper tantrum and subsequent disownment. I watched a whole lot of my brothers and sisters go with him. Out of pride. You've never been particularly prideful, Castiel. You believe in the Throne. You asked a few questions, voiced a few doubts. You didn't turn around and give Dad the finger. Y'understand the difference?"

Castiel still couldn't speak, so he assumed Gabriel wasn't done yet. He nodded tightly.

"So your Grace is getting used up, and isn't self-filling anymore. That doesn't mean you're Falling. It means someone upstairs is a great big bag of dicks." Gabriel looked thoughtful. "Probably Raphael. Regardless, you're going to have to replenish it yourself. Meditate in a park. Go to one of those really old cathedrals. Hell, eat a cheeseburger or fuck someone. Anything that blisses you out will work."

Castiel furrowed his forehead. "That seems… too simple." Could it really be that easy?

"Bro, who's been down here all this time, and who's been watching from afar? Trust me. Being cut off from Heaven and being cut off from Dad are not at all the same thing. Let Raphael play his douchebag power games. There are ways around his tantrums. In the meantime…" He offered his hand and Castiel's eyes widened at the ribbon of power winding around it to rest in his palm.

Castiel hesitantly put out his hand. To be in an archangel's presence was rare enough in the last millennia. To have touched one, shared power… It harkened back to the days when angels did not divide into garrisons, but were part of a whole, when sharing knowledge and strength was joyous and natural. Those days were long gone. Castiel had stood in the shadow of archangelic wings, but had never touched archangelic Grace so directly.

"Go on," Gabriel said with a twinkle in his eye. "I don't bite the unwilling."

Bracing himself for anything from a nuclear explosion to being smote on the spot, he gingerly took his brother's hand. It came like the sigh of wind, the steady, quiet rush of a brook. Much more rapidly than he expected, the gauge in his mind's eye (which nowadays looked suspiciously like the fuel meter on the Impala) swung up to the Full line.

The exchange could not have taken more than three seconds, and Gabriel dropped his hand away. "Better?"

Castiel didn't often understand human gestures, or cultural mores. There were so many subtexts, so many nuances, and every time he thought he'd grasped one, the context changed and he was left in the dark again. But he thought he understood this one well enough. Without thinking too much about it, or overanalyzing it, he embraced Gabriel, thumping him carefully on the back in much the same manner Bobby had to Dean and then Sam. "Thank you," he said.

Gabriel froze, then lightly patted him on the shoulder. "That works too," he said. "And you're welcome. Just, ah, go easy with the hugging around Sam, huh? He strikes me as the broody, jealous type."

=0=

Deep in the bowels of the house, Ruby seethed. This was not how things were supposed to go. Sam was supposed to be choked with demon blood by now, and the archangel a non-factor. Everything had been trucking along so very well, but somehow, it had all gone pear-shaped and off the rails.

She didn't have many options. If the conjured rope hadn't held her so very well – and she'd been constantly testing it for weaknesses since it had been wrapped around her – she could have tried a number of different things. Even with the Devil's Trap, she had options. Not many, not good ones, but still options. _One_ option.

The Winchesters weren't the only ones with their own personal angels.

_Dear Zachariah, angel of anal-retentiveness. Get your feathered ass down here now. _

=0=

Dinner was surreal. No one talked, except one-word requests like "salt". Castiel seated himself beside Dean, filling his plate with fries and burgers and a unhealthy helping of cherry pie on the side. For all intents and purposes, it was the mirror of Dean's plate. He even loaded up on the salt and soda, approaching his meal with a look like a man not sure what he was getting himself into.

Weirder still was Sam, the health freak who thought that salads were a valid main course option, inhaling plate after plate of red meat and greasy fries like he hadn't eaten in days. Gabriel wasn't much better and, between the two of them, more than half the food slowly but surely disappeared.

He glanced at Bobby, gratified to see that he wasn't the only one somewhat disturbed. Bobby just shrugged helplessly at him, shifting noodles around his plate with his chopsticks.

Dean chewed thoughtfully, turning his fork over and over in his fingers. "Alright, does anyone want to tell me what the hell is going on? Or do I need to break out the silver and holy water?"

Suddenly, he had everyone's attention. Sam had even stopped mid-chew, swallowing guiltily and putting his half-eaten burger back on his plate. "I'm hungry," he said lamely.

"Yeah, I can see that. A burger, Sam? You haven't had a burger from Sue's since you were twelve. And I thought angels didn't eat," he added, waving his fork at Gabriel and Castiel.

Gabriel shoved another French fry in his mouth. "Dean, what you don't know about angels could fill the Dead Sea. I went through all the trouble of getting myself a digestive system. Occasionally, I enjoy using it."

That was a dodge if Dean had ever heard one. "Cas, wanna fill the rest of the class in?"

Castiel swallowed and set down his burger. "Eating replenishes Grace," he said calmly. "And the food is good. I like it." With no further pomp, he picked up his burger again and resumed eating it.

There was something else they weren't telling him. "I thought you bastards had direct lines to Heaven for that."

"Uh, hello? We're off the reservation here, Dean. You think they're going to let us keep our lines of supply?" Gabriel shook his head. "I was cut off centuries ago. Poor Castiel here thought he was Falling." Dean shot a startled look at the angel, but Castiel continued to methodically eat, avoiding his eyes. "They're playing dirty, our siblings. But tapping into angelic conduits is just the easiest way to charge back up again. It isn't the only way."

"Alright." Fine. Cas had asked him to try not bitching at, or about, Gabriel, and he was going to try if it killed him. "Sam? What about you?"

Sam sighed. "Only you'd be so paranoid to think that something was wrong just because I was eating a burger, Dean. Not everything I do is suspicious, alright?"

"It's always the same conversation," Balthazar suddenly complained, manifesting beside the table between Bobby and Dean. Dean had his knife out and halfway to plunging in the angel's stomach before he registered who it was. Bobby nearly went backwards as he jumped in his chair. Balthazar caught Dean's wrist an inch before the blade would have gone in, not that it would have done anything. Damned angels.) and righted Bobby's chair with the other hand. "Seriously, do you two co-dependents have nothing else to talk about but your love/hate relationship with each other? Ooh! Whiskey! I think I will, thank you, Robert."

"I freaking hate it when they do that," Dean muttered, resheathing his knife. He caught Sam's eye, and his brother just nodded knowingly.

"Did you get it?" Gabriel asked.

Balthazar nodded, examining the bottle plucked from the sideboard. "I did. It was neither entertaining nor interesting, but I know where the box is."

"Box?" Sam looked at Dean, then back at Balthazar, then Gabriel. "What box?"

"The Ark of the Covenant," Castiel said calmly, and Dean's head whipped around.

His voice rose an octave. "The one with the Nazi face-melter?"

Sam scoffed. "Dude, not everything is an Indiana Jones movie."

Outside the window, lightning flashed, and thunder rumbled.

All three angels went stone-still. Castiel had food halfway to his mouth, Gabriel paused in the middle of chewing, and Balthazar stood with the whiskey bottle half-tipped to pour. All three sets of eyes were turned in the same direction: east, and up.

Dean had the sudden urge to go for a gun, adrenaline surging to scream fight-or-flight in his veins. Bobby's chair scraped back as he stood up, .

"He wouldn't," Balthazar said softly.

"He would," Gabriel said.

Static sizzled through the air.

Castiel's eyes grew impossibly wide, and he whirled back towards the group with one hand outflung in warning. "Get down!" he yelled, and dove for Dean.

Seven sets of wings erupted into the room, electric and hissing and nearly blinding Sam with the brilliance. Through teary, squinting eyes, he saw Castiel's dark feathers wrap around Dean, completely enveloping him in black down. Balthazar's six were already closed in bands of red and gold as, predictably, he protected himself.

Sam was jerked off his feet as Gabriel yanked him back and down, hard. Tricolored gold and white and caramel slammed around him, cutting off the rest of the room.

_Dean! Bobby!_

He fought to get free of the smothering feathers, but Gabriel's arms were like bands of steel holding him tight against his body. His breath hissed in and out of his mouth, coming faster and harder as panic welled up. "Dean! Bobby!"

"Dean's fine! Castiel has him. It's okay!"

"What about Bobby?"

Gabriel tensed for a moment, and then relaxed. "Balthazar," he said simply. "Relax, Sam. We've got you."

All the fight went out of him. Sam nodded slowly, sinking back with the bonelessness of sheer relief. The floor rumbled under his feet and, though the noises were muffled and distant, it sounded like the ceiling was coming down. Sam didn't care. He would in a minute, he knew, but right then, as long as his family was safe, he absolutely could not have cared if the world was ending around them.

=0=

Eventually, the rumbling stopped, and the world was silent and soft again. Sam roused as soon as Gabriel's arms loosened, enough for him to get some personal space. He dragged himself reluctantly away the few inches allowed, brushing right into the multitude of feathers, and turned as much as he could. Gabriel's face was a mask of concentration, and something about the set of his unfocussed eyes hinted at pain and discomfort.

The last of Sam's happy-good feeling dissolved into instant worry. "Are you okay?"

"Oh yeah, peachy," Gabriel replied, his voice strained. "I'm just holding half a hundred tons of metal and wood off your head with my pinfeathers. I do this every week for shits and giggles."

Sam's hands fisted slowly on his knees. If anything in his life had sounded bad, it was that. "Is everyone else..?" He couldn't finish the question.

"Fine," Gabriel said tightly. "In the same boat, but alive. For now."

"What the hell _was _that?"

"Raphael."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"You can shut up," Gabriel said through gritted teeth.

Sam jerked back, stung. "I'm just trying to…"

"No, really. _Shut up._ The pyrotechnics earlier drained me more than I let on. I'm keeping several hundred tons in the air with my freaking wings, carrying on a three-way conversation in my head _and _answering your inane questions. I'm having trouble multitasking right now. So if you want to help, just sit there, look pretty and keep your mouth closed until I say otherwise."

Sam snapped his jaw shut, trying not to feel the silly little flash of hurt but unable to completely ignore it. He told himself to get over it, because Gabriel _did _sound occupied, but it still stung. Finally, Gabriel nodded, though he looked no less strained. "We're out of here in five seconds, so if you want a ride, I suggest you hold on tight."

Irked at the angel or not, Sam wasted no time in plastering himself against Gabriel. He wasn't claustrophobic, he just really didn't like the idea of being trapped underneath the ruins of Bobby's house.

There was a faint rush of air and a cool breeze ruffled the back of Sam's hair. The wings were gone. Vague loss and vaguer disappointment filled him, the sadness of losing something truly breathtaking. Sam shook his head, trying to shake it off. The sound of movement floated from the right, a groan, a crash and a thud.

Then Dean, acerbic and biting. "Christ, Sam. Get a freaking room, will you?"

Sam jerked away from Gabriel guiltily, and it was truly a sign of how thin the archangel had worn himself that he only waggled his eyebrows suggestively instead of cracking some embarrassing double entendre. Sam avoided looking directly at the fallen rubble of Bobby's house; the place was his home, for all intents and purposes. Seeing it like that just hurt too goddamn much.

Dean was grimy and ragged, but looked uninjured except for minor scrapes and bruises. Castiel, on the other hand, was a wreck, half-slid to the ground against a tree, dazed and bloody. Before Sam could ask how he was doing, Gabriel staggered over to Castiel and crouched beside him with a hand outstretched. At least, he started to, but as Sam watched, he wobbled and went over on his ass. "Fuck it," he muttered and, now sitting, stretched his hand out to Castiel again.

Sam was developing a pretty clear picture of exactly how much work even the archangels had to put into keeping them safe from Raphael's attack.

He owed them all some very heartfelt thank-yous.

That was four of the six, but there was no sign of Balthazar or Bobby. "Where's Bobby?" he called to Dean, once he realized his father figure wasn't anywhere in sight.

Dean's brow creased as he started, looking quickly around before lifting a shoulder. "Dunno," he called back. "Maybe on the other side of the house?"

"You go that way, I'll go this way."

A search party proved unnecessary. As Dean and Sam approached the ruins of Singer Salvage, Bobby came stomping around the wreckage, face as dark as an oncoming storm. Balthazar strolled lazily behind him, looking about as stable on his feet as Gabriel had been. His clothing was torn, and his hair mussed beyond all fashion style. But he was humming cheerfully as Bobby, grimy as the rest of them, cursed his ass a blue streak.

Sam halted, waving an arm at Dean. His brother reversed direction and came tearing across what was left of the lawn. "Bobby, y'okay?"

Bobby stabbed him with his patented exasperated stare. "Hell no!" he roared. "Do I look like a well-adjusted, calm individual to you?"

Sam had seen that look before, but it was usually directed at either him, or Dean, or both of them, when they'd gone and done something monumentally stupid. But he was getting the feeling it hadn't been him this time. Especially since Bobby kept shooting the filthiest of looks over his shoulder at the angel meandering along behind him.

Oh no. Oh, _no._

Sam felt laughter bubbling up in his chest and he frantically squashed it back down. "Did he—"

"What the hell do you think?" Bobby snapped, and yanked up the sleeve of his shirt. There, on his bicep, was a handprint as clear as day in a raised red weal. "Happy I didn't get crushed, but I coulda done without the game of grabass while my home crumbled around my goddamn ears."

"What?" asked Balthazar, smiling far too innocently for his own good. He strolled to a stop beside Bobby, slinging an easy arm over the hunter's shoulder. "It was the quickest way I could think of to save his life, which you really should be cheering about. Besides, everyone else is doing it. I didn't want to feel left out."


	10. Stand Beside or Step Aside

**Author's Note: **Happy New Year! If '12 was good for you, may '13 follow in its footsteps. If '12 sucked, may '13 be much, much better!

The title for this chapter comes from the lyrics of "Frontline", by Pillar.

**Stand Beside or Step Aside**

The stack of cars had melted together, twisted metal and liquefied rubber fused into shapes that were oddly beautiful under the light from the full moon. Castiel paused before one, inspecting it silently. He reached out and let his hand rest on the cool metal for a moment. Black char scored the front, slashing the chipped and cracked paint. He smudged a thumb through it, inspecting the smear of black on the pad.

It might have easily have been Dean, twisted and scorched by lightning, an unrecognizable lump of component parts. Logically, he knew it wouldn't have looked the same at all; metal was forged to channel electricity and the human body wasn't. Dean wouldn't have melted into the floor, he would have turned to ash and smoke the instant Raphael's lightning touched him. But Castiel couldn't shake the thought out of his head.

It might have been Dean.

Jimmy, he knew, would have helped. Would have at least distracted him from the ice that settled into the pit of his stomach, the sick spin of cold realization that his friend had no defense against Raphael's spite save him. And he almost had not been enough. But Jimmy couldn't help him quell the fear. He was buried deep beneath Castiel's presence, sheltered against the storm Raphael unleashed. He was alone with his coping.

Castiel's hand curled into a fist as he dropped it away from the heap. It might have been Dean.

If he had not shared power with Gabriel… If he had not listened to Gabriel and found an alternate, if somewhat less effective, way of replenishing his Grace… If, if, if…

"You're thinking too much, Castiel." Gabriel's voice came from above, and Castiel looked up. His brother stood on the heap above him, hands in his pockets. "I can hear the hamster gasping for breath, you're making him run that wheel so fast. So knock it off, huh?"

"It might have been Dean." Somehow, it sounded far worse out loud.

Gabriel hopped down, landing lightly in front of Castiel. He shook his head. "Nah. That wasn't Raphael's goal. All of this—" He waved his hand around the junkyard, with its moonlit abstracts of metal and glass. "—was a distraction."

"A distraction," he said flatly.

"Uh huh." Gabriel unwrapped a candy on a stick and shoved it into his mouth. The wrapper gusted away on a breeze, spinning and flipping into the darkness of the yard. "If he could have taken out me, or you, or Balthazar, that would have been bonus points. Even Bobby would have been a footnote. But Sam? Dean? Oh, he has plans for them, and it wouldn't do to damage the goods before Michael and Lucifer have a chance to play out their little emo psychodrama."

Castiel stared at his brother. "Then what was his purpose? I don't understand."

"He was careful," said Balthazar, stepping around from behind a stack of cars, sloshing a drink in his hand. "Very careful, our brother. The attack wasn't directed at the house, but at all the lovely little conductors arranged so tidily around the building. We did exactly as he expected us to."

Comprehension dawned. It only made Castiel angrier. "He knew we would protect Sam and Dean and Bobby."

Balthazar raised one finger. "No," he said smugly. "He didn't know we'd save Bobby. Or, rather, _I'd _save Bobby."

Gabriel snickered. "How's he taking it, by the way?"

"Oh, very well," Balthazar said breezily, sipping from his glass. "He's threatened to turn me into his Christmas turkey if I don't fix it. Amongst other, less pleasant fates. He has a very creative mind for threats."

"Dean has offered to help him," Castiel supplied, feeling slightly lost with the nonchalance of his brothers. They had just been attacked (_it might have been Dean_); shouldn't they be planning a counter-move in retaliation?

"Ooh," Balthazar said with a mocking shiver. "I quiver with dread."

Castiel bristled, fingers tightening into fists at his sides. He took one step forward, eyes narrowing. How _dare_—

Gabriel moved smoothly between him and Balthazar. Castiel considered making a lunge for his brother anyway, then stopped, confused as to why the reaction had triggered that strongly. "Ladies," Gabriel said, hands out to push them apart if need be. "We have other concerns right now. Save the catfight for later, huh?"

Castiel forced his shoulders to unbunch, his hands to relax. It took more effort than it should have. He nodded curtly. "What did Raphael hope to accomplish by indirectly attacking the Winchesters? If his goal wasn't to kill or incapacitate them…"

Gabriel and Balthazar shared a look. Then, Gabriel shrugged and swept a hand between Balthazar and Castiel. "Go ahead."

"It was a tight fit," Balthazar said, "but I managed to squeeze into the panic room where you locked the houseguest prior to dinner. As an aside, I'm just going to add when Robert Singer builds a bomb shelter, he builds it to last. You don't see that kind of paranoid craftsmanship much anymore."

Castiel had a feeling he knew where this was going, despite his brother's tangentials. "And?"

"_And_ the demon bitch is gone. _And_ Zachariah's stink is all over the walls. That dreadful cologne he insists on showering in. Ugh."

"Which one's Zachariah again?" asked Gabriel, twirling the lollipop in his mouth.

Castiel's mouth twisted. "Zedkiel." The same one he'd told Dean about—was it really only a few hours ago? He'd never been entirely comfortable around Zachariah; that particular brother had always been a little leery, a little dismissive, of the humans they watched. Angry even, from time to time. Surely his contempt wouldn't extend so far as to working with demons… If it wasn't Balthazar—Jegudiel—saying it, he would not have considered the possibility.

Gabriel's expression cleared. "Ahh. Zedkiel. The angel with four faces. All of them douchebags."

"Succinct." Balthazar tipped his glass towards Gabriel, who sketched a shallow bow.

"He wasn't always this way," Castiel said, but it sounded weak to his own ears.

"True," Gabriel said, "but that doesn't excuse anything now."

That was the problem, Castiel decided. It didn't. Because it might have been Dean. "What is the plan? Obtain the Ark?"

Gabriel shook his head and, with a flick of his fingers, sent the empty white paper stick spinning into the night. "No. That's going to take some time to put together. Knowing where it's hidden is only the first step. We're going to have to fight every step to get it back in our grubby little hands." A hand settled on his shoulder, and Gabriel watched him steadily. "This is the point of no return, Cas," he said. "This is a declaration of war. There's still time to step back, if you want it. Because once this thing is done, that's it. We may as well blast Ride of the Valkyries everywhere we go."

Castiel considered for a long time, letting his gaze wander around the mounds of scrap metal looming like shadow-capped mountains from the ground. Gabriel had good points in their earlier conversation, forcing him to consider if he'd rebelled against Heaven or rebelled against God. He considered Jimmy's chief debate point, that what he chose to do didn't matter to God, because God accounted for everything anyway. He wondered if this was the first step down a long, dark, dirty road.

He wished he could consult Jimmy, a little startled to realize how much he'd come to rely on his host's perspective, but Jimmy was still deeply buried. In the end, he supposed, it didn't matter, because he knew what Jimmy would say. He knew where Jimmy's support would lie. He knew where he had to go.

Because it might have been Dean.

He squared his shoulders, set his jaw. It was simple, and silly, but the very human gesture made him feel more like the stalwart soldier of the Almighty than anything else. "I'm with you," he said. "Tell me what to do."

=0=

Bobby sat on the hood of his truck, which had blessedly been parked a safe distance from the epicenter of the blast, and stared at the wreckage of his home.

Singer Salvage had been in the family for three generations, going all the way back to his granddad who won the whole kit and caboodle in a backroom poker game sometime in the 30s. Grandpa had turned it from a half-assed money sink into a genuine goldmine of post-War prosperity. The Old Man had died on the job, his heart failing while he was tuning up a DeSoto, and the place had passed to Bobby's father who had been a wife-beating, child-hitting piece of shit that nearly ran the business into the ground. After Bobby'd taken care of that little problem, the place had come into his hands, and he'd turned it right around again.

He'd married here, under the elm trees that used to be four and were now two and a half. Family and friends had come and gone. Karen had him build a gazebo which he didn't need but she sure as hell wanted in the shade of the honeylocust by the back porch. There'd been a vegetable garden over there for a few years, while Karen battled with the notion that she had the thumb of death to all vegetation she tried to nurture.

His father was buried here.

His wife was buried here.

He'd sat on the porch with John and Rufus and Gary and Mitchell and Glen and a host of other faces, dead and gone now, pouring over obscure lore and discussing the best ways to deal with all the crap cropping up all over the Midwest.

He'd told Karen he never wanted children here, three days before the blackest, bleakest day of his life. He'd never been able to fix it, and had just lived with the ghosts of Karen and the children that never were drifting through the halls.

Less than ten years later, Sam and Dean had stayed summers, playing hide-and-seek in the piles of salvage, digging through the junk to unearth treasures that were trash to anyone else's eyes. He'd taught Dean to fix cars here. He'd patched up Sam's skinned knees. Marked their growth between the times he saw them on the wall beside the mantel, letting the dashes of pencil lead fade with time but never completely disappearing.

All that was gone now. His library, the panic room, the stores of weapons, the photos of Karen, the boys, John, all his ashes-and-dust hunter buddies. His booze, his damned-hard-to-come-by spell components. The phones and the other assorted paraphernalia that made the lifestyle easier to bear.

The memories.

He swigged back on his flask, the sole bit of alcohol to escape the total destruction, and stared at the wreckage of his home. Out beyond the hill of timber and stone and tile, the angels were breaking up from whatever discussion they'd been clustered into, two of 'em flickering out in the space between one blink and the next. The last came walking his way and, by his height and the way he carried himself, he knew it wasn't Gabriel or Castiel.

Rage screamed through him, bright and sudden and sharp. He didn't want to deal with Balthazar, or Jegudiel, or whatever the hell it was he called himself. Not now. Not ever. Bobby's hand went up to scratch viciously at the mark he'd had branded into his skin.

Balthazar might have sensed his mood, because he halted a good, safe distance away. Just out of range of Bobby's throwing arm. Bobby snorted to himself. He might as well have come closer; this was the last of his moonshine and, tempting as it was, he wasn't inclined to chuck it at Balthazar's head until he'd finished it.

"Evening, Robert," the archangel said, and Bobby wanted to strangle him for how cheerful he sounded.

"Fuck off," he snarled and took another belt from the flask.

"Is that any way to talk to your guardian angel?"

Bobby was off the hood of the truck before he realized he'd moved, advancing across the ground between them, hands balled up in fists so tight he knew they'd be pins and needles for hours when he relaxed them. "Nobody asked you to do anything of the sort. Now get this goddamn mark off me, flap away, and leave me alone."

His eyesight had been going down the toilet for the last few years, and Balthazar's face was in shadow, but he thought he saw consternation pass across it. "It was the only way," he said. "Or would you rather I had left you to be crushed to death under your own roof?"

"Maybe you shoulda! Maybe it was my time to go. My way to go. Maybe I didn't ask you to do a damned thing."

Balthazar's forehead creased. "Robert—"

"Don't. Just…" Bobby sagged as the anger left him as suddenly as it had blazed up, and he rubbed at his face as he returned to the hood of his truck. "Just go away and leave me to my drinking."

"Now why would I do that?" Balthazar had the balls to hop up beside him, perching like a cat. The metal didn't even groan under the added weight. "When I can tell you that, first off, I can't just undo it. It doesn't work that way. But—" He hastily raised his hands in appeasement as Bobby shot him a look that would have killed him to a smear of feathers and ash if it could have. "—this is the extent it goes to. You're not really my type."

Bobby said nothing, just scowled as he looked away again and drank some more.

"I'm not besotted with the idea of tying myself to a man with a hatred for his own liver," Balthazar continued, "nor am I normally the type to do this sort of thing. I even tried to get out of prophet duty every time it was my turn. The only good things to have come from humanity, as far as I'm concerned, are disco, whiskey, strippers and mind-altering substances. The rest can hang."

"All the more reason for you to fuck off," Bobby muttered.

"But I'm in this now," Balthazar breezed on, as if Bobby had never interrupted him, "to the hilt, with my brothers. And the very last thing I want to deal with during family visits is the Winchesters sulking and carrying on like widows in the wake of your untimely demise. So really, me slapping a hand on your shoulder was all for my benefit. You just happened to get something out of it as well. Your life. For which, by the way, you're welcome. I mean, I wasn't expecting a tickertape parade of gratitude, but a thank-you wouldn't have gone amiss."

Bobby turned to stare at him in disbelief. He'd heard some convoluted justifications in his time, hell, he'd _told _some, but that one really took the cake. "Boy, do you smell the shit you're shoveling?"

Balthazar grinned and examined his nails. "It's a talent," he said. "Now, buck up, Robert. With a little bit of luck and some judicial applications of archangelic might, your house will be standing again in a week or so. Besides, if you keep swigging back the hooch like you're doing, your liver won't let you live to see Raphael get served his own head on a plate."

Bobby paused for a long moment, flask halfway back to his lips. Then, he screwed the cap closed, tucked it back into his pocket and turned completely to face his goddamned guardian angel. "I'm listening."

"It's war now, Singer. Full on, in-the-trenches war. So this is where you make your decision. Are you in, or are you out?"

Bobby didn't even need to think about it. Between the dicking around with Sam and Dean, and the attack on his own property and, hell, even for Karen. Balthazar shouldn't have even needed to ask. "Hell yes I'm in," he said.

Balthazar sat back, pleased. Then, thoughtful. "Robert," he said slowly, wiggling his fingers, "how attached are you to your ribs? By that I mean, do you like them as they are, or are you inclined to some… skeletal enhancement?"

=0=

Sam used to do his best work in libraries.

When he was smaller, and Dad was out on the hunt, he'd whine and cajole Dean into taking him to the library where he'd sit for hours, reading page after page, story after story, losing himself in worlds full of dragons and aliens and spaceships and superheroes. Even when his guilty pleasure reading had to be justified (_Dracula, Sammy? It's research, Dad) _he spun lies gladly, to keep immersed in his escape from the crap of his monster-hunting life.

Even when he'd left the family business and gone off to college, he reveled in Stanford's library, breathing in the scent of old ink and well-worn paper. He left with stacks and stacks, the official limit, every time he checked out books. Jess had laughed at him, gently and without malice, for how much and how broadly he read.

Even after Jess died and he rejoined Dean on the search for his father, Sam took comfort in libraries, in their hidden troves of lore. The microfiche files, where he could unearth demonic signs and portents and weird deaths recorded in newspapers. History, geography, language, culture, folklore. Everything was at his fingertips.

Knowledge was power, and Sam was a natural at gathering it.

Today, he took no comfort in the rows of fiction and reference. Today, he flipped through the pages listlessly, surrounded by piles of tomes on biblical history, angel folklore and histories of the ancient Middle East, but the words refused to make sense to him.

He wanted to pace, he wanted to plunge his hands into his hair and pull it out by the roots. He wanted to load up on angel mace and go hunting for an archangel. He wanted to walk out the door and rage at the sky, where Raphael sat safely in Heaven, smug and condescending. He wanted to steal the keys to the Impala and begin the hunt for Ruby, another name to add to his list, right behind Lilith and Azazel. He wanted to be anywhere but _here_.

But _here _was where he was needed, so _here_ he would sit, fuming and useless, staring sightlessly at texts that were no doubt helpful if only he could concentrate on them.

Sam used to do his best work in libraries, but the piles of books looked like the stacks of wrecked cars in the junkyard around the ruins of the only home Sam had ever known.

He sighed. He wasn't getting any work done here right now. There was too much silence in the room, too much noise in his head. His concentration was shot to hell. He absently rubbed his left wrist with his right hand, wishing that there was someone that could make the clamour in his mind shut up for just a little bit. Where the hell was Gabriel?

"Ask and ye shall receive." Hands settled across his shoulders and, though Sam should have jumped and tensed and prepared to fight, he relaxed into them instead.

"Think of the devil," Sam drawled, and let his head tip back.

"Please don't ever say that again." Gabriel's tone was pained and, as Sam's brain caught up to his mouth, he winced. Right. The devil was Big Brother.

"Sorry," he said.

"Over it." Gabriel's chin came to rest on beside the hand on his shoulder, eyes cast at the book open on the table, and he snorted. "Reading St. Catherine of Alexandria? What a dry old bat she was. Always on about Dad this and Dad that. Couldn't get her to unbunch her panties even a little and, believe you me, I tried."

Sam smirked, bemused. "You knew St. Catherine."

Gabriel slid around him to sit on the edge of the table. "I'm old, Sam. I knew a lot of people. Saints, sinners, gods, demons, monsters, men. Some more fun than others." A pause. "How are you doing, kiddo?"

Sam blew out a breath. "Better than if someone died," he admitted, "but overall? Not good."

Gabriel nodded. "Figured as much. Anything I can do?"

"You're doing it."

There it was again, that soft light of vulnerability that always floored Sam to see. It was only there for a moment, before Gabriel's patented smirk slid back into place. "Good thing I've got an industrial-strenth sweet tooth, Sammy, or you'd rot 'em all out of my head."

Sam shrugged with a smile. "Dean keeps telling me I'm the touchy-feely one," he said. "It's gotta be good for something, right?"

Sam must have blinked and missed it, because Gabriel was suddenly _there, _in his personal space, golden eyes scanning his face intently. "How touchy-feely are we talking about?" he asked, and there was _something _in his tone that had Sam swallowing convulsively against a bone-dry mouth.

"Oh," he said, breath catching, "just touchy-feely enough." And nearly jumped out of his skin when a hand pressed lightly against his chest.

"Gotta keep you safe," Gabriel murmured from a breath away.

"Okay," Sam said, heart hammering in his throat.

"It's going to hurt," Gabriel said seriously. "A lot."

"I can take it."

"I can help a little."

Sam squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself. He had no idea what Gabriel was going to do, but he trusted him. "Just do it."

His eyes flew open when Gabriel's free hand slid to cradle his head and Gabriel's mouth slanted over his. Sam stiffened in shock, and Gabriel's lips curved against his. "Relax." The word was more a hum, a vibration, than a vocalization.

And Gabriel was kissing him again, lips warm and soft, smelling of peppermint and chocolate. Sam's eyes fluttered closed and let Gabriel's tongue slip into his mouth. It was nothing like what he would have thought. It was soft and sweet, almost tentative. Wondrous. Awed.

He had only a single heartbeat to get used to it before Gabriel's fingers clamped down on the back of his head and Gabriel was _really _kissing him.

Higher thought shut down under the assault. Gabriel kissed him like he was air and water, necessary for survival. He moaned, low in his throat, and Gabriel's hand on his chest shifted, caught tight between their bodies.

Discomfort sparked as Gabriel shoved hard, and Sam had one crazy minute where it felt almost like Gabriel's fingers were heating up, and then the agony washed everything else away in a sheet of red and white.

Sam scrabbled for purchase, clinging to Gabriel's shoulders with white-knuckled fingers, hanging between lust and pain, pleasure and torture, for what seemed an eternity before it was over, and Sam was left gasping into Gabriel's mouth, thoughts overflowing in confusion and fear and desire and hunger for more.

Gabriel set him back down in his chair with gentle hands, and Sam immediately doubled over, clutching his chest. A lingering ache pulsed, stealing his breath for a second before abating again. His jeans were uncomfortably tight, but he wasn't thinking about that right now. He wasn't.

"Enochian sigils, carved on your ribs," Gabriel said without prompting, and his voice shook just a little. By the time Sam glanced up, whatever expression Gabriel had been wearing was gone, but his eyes were a little wild and his hair mussed like Sam had been running his fingers through it. Oh God, he had been. "You're invisible to angels now. Except me. Because I'm awesome."

"Neat," Sam said, prodding gingerly at his chest. The ache had faded to near non-existence.

Gabriel sauntered towards the door, swinging around halfway there like he'd forgotten to mention something. "Oh," he said, with a snap of his fingers. "Right. Before I forget. We're declaring war on Heaven. Wanna come along?"

=0=

There was a Dr. Sexy marathon on, but Dean couldn't concentrate on it. He sat on the couch, staring blankly at the flickering screen, a now-warm beer tucked between his thighs and too many black thoughts in his head.

This hadn't happened the first time around. He'd been prepared for Bobby's paralysis, for Crowley to put in his slimy, homoerotic appearance at some point. For Meg and Ruby and the whole squadron of feathery dickwads to start screwing around with events. Since the buruburu and the ghost sickness, he'd been scribbling up the back pages of Dad's journal, recording insights and snippets of all the crap Gabriel had shoved into his head in the mindfuck of a future Zachariah had sent him to.

He hadn't been expecting a direct attack on them but, in hindsight, he should have been.

He stood up, pacing the confines of the motel room like a caged animal. He should have known that, once Team Free Will stopped playing by the rulebook, the other side would do the same. He'd met Raphael a couple of times, knew what a cold, emotionless bastard the arch-douche was. Knew what he was capable of. Why hadn't he planned for something like this?

He stopped abruptly by the table, where he'd left the battered old journal, flipping pages furiously. But it didn't matter whose handwriting it was: Dad's, his or even Sam's. There was nothing there that would help with this, that could fix any of this. All of his foreknowledge, all of the ideas and half-sketched plans he'd been forming, completely useless.

Enraged, he snatched the book up and chucked it as hard as he could across the room. It dented the wall beside the door, narrowly missing Castiel's head. To his credit, the angel didn't even blink, merely looked at the book as it thudded to the floor, before bending to pick it up.

"Cas, man… I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

"It's fine, Dean." Dean didn't know how Castiel did it, but he could deliver worldbreaking news in that gravelly voice of his, and Dean always felt just a little better. The trenchcoat flared slightly as Castiel walked forward, holding his Dad's journal like he was cradling the Holy Grail. "I should know by now that surprising either of you rarely leads to positive reactions."

Dean didn't know how to take that. It sounded like an insult, but Castiel wasn't one for backhandedness. If he thought you were being a dick, he said it straight out. He blew out a breath, scrubbed at his hairline with his fingernails, and finally asked, "How's Bobby?"

"Better, I think." Castiel carefully placed the journal back on the table, resting his fingertips atop it. "Balthazar was speaking to him as I departed. He is… upset still, but I believe he is being made aware of an alternate outlet for his anger as we speak."

Dean arched an eyebrow. Cas obviously didn't know Bobby very well if he thought he'd ever take an 'alternate outlet for his anger'. "Oh?"

Castiel nodded. "He put his flask back in his pocket. I assumed that was a good sign."

"Alright," Dean said slowly. "And this… outlet? What's that."

Castiel regarded him, steady as a rock. "War."

Dean's eyebrow wasn't going anywhere but up. "War. Like, angel-on-angel war? Because I thought we were trying to avoid that."

"We were, but we no longer can. Raphael has dealt insult and injury, and it cannot go unanswered. Events are unfolding rapidly now, Dean. Seals are breaking. A more direct response is required and we are preparing to give it."

"War on Heaven."

"War on Raphael," corrected Castiel, "and whatever forces of Heaven choose to follow him."

A few weeks back, Castiel had been adamant about following Heaven's directions. That only Heaven had the answers, the plan. Now, here he was, calmly talking about going to war with his own kind as if he were discussing the weather. Dean shook his head. "You do that, and you're signing a death warrant, Cas. I'm pretty sure rebelling is something they kick you out of the angel club for. You're cut off right now from whatever power lines you're supposed to tap into. You sure you want to risk Falling completely?"

A tiny smile tugged at Castiel's mouth. "Gabriel told me there is a difference between rebelling against Heaven and rebelling against the Father."

The other eyebrow joined the crawl to the ceiling. Dammit, he'd promised Cas he wouldn't make any more snide remarks about the pipsqueak, but sometimes a man had to break his promises. "Gabriel, the poster child for paganism, gave you advice on what makes rebellion a rebellion. Cas, man, think this through."

"I have. Dean, whatever Raphael has planned, it is not God's will. It is _his _will done in God's name, and that is blasphemy. For no other reason, he must be called to answer for his heresy. But there are other reasons. Lucifer cannot be allowed to walk the Earth. Lilith must be stopped before the final Seal breaks. Gabriel is right; if the Father were disappointed in me, my Grace would dwindle with no chance of replenishment until I finally ceased to be. Yet here I stand, still His angel. I'm asking you, Dean, to stand with me."

Well, hell. What the hell was he supposed to say to that? Dean sighed, squeezed the bridge of his nose to ward off the headache that was no doubt coming. He was going to name it _Gabriel _when it showed up. "Of course I'm with you, Cas. You don't even have to ask."

Castiel stood, arms loose at his side, smiling fully in a way that warmed Dean's insides. "There is something I have to do," he said, "to protect you from the Host."

Aww, crap. "Will it hurt?"

The smile was gone, replaced with sympathy. "Yes. I'm sorry."

Dean braced himself, thinking of a cocoon of black, soft feathers. "I can take it," he said.


	11. Only Trying to Keep the Sky from Falling

**Author's Note: **The title for this chapter comes from the lyrics of "Saving Grace" by Everlast.

**Only Trying to Keep the Sky from Falling**

Dean wasn't usually one for thought organization and premeditated actions. His father's way was to pin things to the wall in whatever order seemed most logical at the time, stringing connections with bits of yarn and colored pushpins, jotting notes on Post-Its and slapping them up onto newspaper clippings, his handwritten notes and surveillance photos. Sam was higher tech, making spreadsheets and word documents about observations, dragging and dropping and scanning and cropping and cutting and pasting and whatever other words Dean didn't know about computers.

Dean pretty much just went where his gut told him, acted like Dad's journal advised he should, and generally hoped for the entire experience to leave him alive and breathing at the end. It had worked out pretty well so far.

But too many things had gone wrong lately for him to not take a step back and have a good, long look at the way everything was running. To that end, he'd made a trip to the dollar store, picking up several sheets of card stock, the big ones kids made science fair projects with, taped them all together, slapped them on the wall, and got to work decorating them with the timeline from his artificial memories and a six pack of colored Sharpies.

It was hard to start, because Dean wasn't sure where he should. Finally, he decided to ignore everything that had happened before his death. Gabriel had sent him back to some vague ephemeral "before", and Dean thought that was as good a starting point as any. With that in mind, he figured he'd just concentrate on the stuff that had happened after he clawed his way out of his own grave.

A thick line of green indicated, for lack of a better term, the original time line, including what Gabriel had stuffed into his head during his impromptu trip to 2014. Black for the "new" time line. Demonic events marked in red on both lines, angelic in blue. Things that couldn't definitively be attributed to either side went median purple.

He wasn't five minutes into his project before he started digging through Sam's bags, looking for liquid paper, figuring that error he'd just made was easily corrected. And it was. The one after that, however, was a little messier. Within minutes of cracking open the lid, the project board was smeared with white, perfect imprints of the whorls and swirls of his thumbprint dotting the scrawled words. He growled and tossed the little bottle, plunging both hands into his hair and staring at the board in frustration.

There had to be a better way of doing this.

The door opened behind him, and he turned to see Sam coming in, precariously balancing a stack of books that nearly reached his chin in one hand. Sam kicked the door shut, turned around to stride into the room, and stopped dead, staring at Dean.

Dean stared back for a long moment, growing more and more irritated by the moment. "What?" he finally snapped.

The corners of Sam's lips quirked, but he didn't smile. Dean would have killed him if he had. "You've got whiteout on your forehead," he said, and dumped the books on his bed.

Dean growled and swiped at his brow. Sure enough, there was a smear of white on the pad of his thumb. "I feel like I've been finger-painting," he groused, turning to look at the bristle board on the wall.

"You _look_ like you've been finger-painting," Sam agreed, coming to stand beside Dean, arms crossing over his chest. "What were you doing, anyway?"

Dean rolled his eyes and made a beeline for the fridge to fish out a couple of beers. When in doubt, drink. "Trying to straighten out everything Gabriel stuck in my head to what's actually happened?" he said as he cracked open the first beer. The second, he held out to Sam.

Sam took the bottle without looking at it, his eyes scanning thoughtfully over Dean's scrawling. "Not a bad idea," he said after a long swallow from the bottle. "Your handwriting is terrible, but you didn't do that bad of a job on the organization."

Dean waved him off, taking a seat on the table and swigging his own beer. "I'll leave that crap to you. It's your thing, not mine."

Sam looked like he wanted to say something, but thought better of it. Instead, he just shrugged and raised the bottle again. "I'll take a look at it later, if you want."

Dean tipped his bottle at Sam, to say he didn't give a damn if Sam tried to puzzle out his scribbles or not. He'd made an attempt at it, now Sam could shoulder the burden of figuring it out. Dean knew he wasn't stupid, but Sam was really the better choice for logistical work. Besides, the breath-stealing twinge in his chest reminded him he had something else he wanted to know. Idly, he rubbed at his ribs, wishing Cas hadn't been so goddamn grabby with them. "Ask you something, Sammy?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you get touched by an angel last night?"

Sam choked on his beer.

Dean decided he really didn't need to know why. He raised his hands, looking pointedly away from Sam as his brother spluttered and coughed, red-faced. "You know what, dude? Never mind. You make any progress finding the Ark?"

Sam blew out a long breath. "Not really," he said. "Its whereabouts are fairly well-tracked, through Biblical history anyway. I tracked it from Jericho to Shiloh, then through Canaan when it was captured by the Philistines. But since everywhere they went, it brought disease and death on the population, it was returned to Israel where it eventually ended up in Solomon's Temple. After the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem, there's no record of what happened to the Ark. It just vanishes."

Dean arched an eyebrow. "Couldn't you just ask your oversized canary?"

Sam shot him a sour look and swigged his beer. "I did," he said. "Gabriel doesn't know. He says the Ark was shielded from everyone except the Eyes of God."

"So we're boned." Great. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

"Not necessarily. The Eyes of God has a lot of interpretations, but one of them is _prophet_." Sam sighed, swirled his beer around the bottle and tossed the last of it back.

Dean absorbed that for a moment. "Okay. So we go see Chuck." Who had the Number One Douchebag in Heaven attached to him. Awesome. "Heaven's got to be watching for us now. We can't just go sauntering in there like idiots."

"No, I agree," Sam said. "We've got to have a plan. Can we maybe get Chuck out somewhere nice and public?"

"Raphael won't care," Castiel cut in suddenly, and both Dean and Sam jumped. Dean, for his part, nearly lost his beer, which went to show how unexpected that had been.

"Dammit, Cas!|" he snapped, patting at his shirt to see if he'd spilled beer on it. "I thought we talked about this!"

"My apologies," Castiel said. Dean looked up, clutching his heart. Castiel's sorry face was the same as his angry face. "Next time, I'll knock. But your plan is foolish."

"We don't actually have a plan, Cas," Sam said. "We're just talking about it now."

"I see." Dean really didn't like the thoughtful look on Castiel's face. It put him in mind of the way he felt when he was about to do something stupid. "You cannot lure the prophet out into the open. They will have angels guarding him now, especially after Balthazar's visit. What Chuck knows, Heaven knows."

"Can we get him in an area that's warded from angels?"

"Possibly, but unlikely. Heaven will be watching for such a thing." Dean _really_ didn't like the way Castiel's expression changed then. It was subtle, so subtle if he hadn't been watching closely for it, he might have missed it. Castiel, in the blink of an eye, had shifted from looking like he was contemplating doing something stupid to preparing himself to do it. Dean knew that look too. He'd seen it on Sam's face and felt it on his own often enough.

"Cas… Whatever you're thinking, don't do it man."

Castiel looked up, his eyes blue and intense. Dean felt the impact of their determination like a punch in the gut. "I will return," he said, and disappeared as Dean lunged forward to grab him.

"Son of a bitch!"

=0=

Warring with Heaven wasn't as simple as declaring hostility, meeting somewhere on an appointed battlefield and duking it out until only one victor was left standing. It would be nice if it were, because then Gabriel wouldn't have to do all this work.

For one thing, they were badly outnumbered. Millions upon millions of angels to their paltry three angels and three humans. That wasn't even counting the demons Heaven had apparently allied with. The human faiths Heaven could draw upon. Even without God running the show, an angel popping down for a quick Visitation could fuel the war machine for a long time to come. The three of them couldn't draw on anything but a loosely-affiliated network of borderline-psychotic, paranoid trigger-happy hunters, maybe a couple of disaffected rebels from both sides, and various sundry monsters who were more inclined to try and eat hunters and angels than they were to parlay with them.

Gabriel's _extended_ family, in other words.

He stood outside the Elysian Fields Hotel, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. Part of him wished it didn't have to be here, because he'd seen the memory of his burned-out Grace in Dean's loaned memory and quite frankly, it scared the shit out of him. He liked life, was addicted to it, as surely as he was addicted to sugar and nasty pranks. But another part of him had an exquisite sense of the macabre, and thought it was only fitting. After all, where else could such a meeting possibly be held?

It had certain poetry to it. Gabriel was a sucker for poetry.

He'd been watching them arrive now for the last couple of hours, in stretch limousines, in unmarked SUVs, in blinding flashes of portals from otherworldly realms. Odin and Baldur, representing the Aesir and Vanir. Kali and Ganesh, for the Indian contingent. Zao Shen, the decrepit old Chinese fart. Gabriel even noticed Mercury skulking about the shadows, the backstabbing little whiner.

Call Lucifer down on _him_, would he?

Gabriel reminded himself that it had been a long time since Mercury had been properly schooled. And sure, he hadn't done anything. _Yet_. But he would, given half a chance. He'd make the mistake of thinking Gabriel's brothers were reasonable psychopaths, like the rest of the Greco-Roman pantheon Mercury was so used to dealing with. He'd take the initiative and try to arrange a meeting with the least balanced of Gabriel's psychopathic siblings.

He'd cut Sam to steal his blood.

Some things, Gabriel just couldn't let slide. Even if they hadn't happened yet.

It had been a few minutes. Plenty of time for tempers inside to reach their boiling points. With no food, no clear goal and no obvious host, the gang inside would all be nice and paranoid by now. With a snap of his fingers, he popped himself from his vantage point to just inside the ballroom doors. The scene spread out before him was eerily familiar: Odin and Zao Shen were tussling in the corner, Kali glaring daggers at everyone, and Baldur holding court like a king directly in the center of the table.

Gabriel grinned. This was going to be either painful, or epic. Aw, who was he kidding? It would probably be both.

And it was going to be _fun_.

=0=

Castiel shouldn't be here, and he knew that. His very presence might serve to alert Raphael, attuned as he was to the prophet's well-being. The last thing Castiel wanted was his elder brother to take notice of him. Castiel actually wanted to, as Dean would put it, go toe-to-toe with Raphael and _make him pay _for what he had tried to do to Dean. But Jimmy urged caution. Balthazar urged caution. _Gabriel _urged caution.

If even Gabriel, well known for his lack of impulse control, urged caution, then Castiel would be cautious. And keep a wary eye above for Raphael's retribution, should it come.

Instead of taking himself directly into the prophet's living room as he'd done last time, he instead appeared in front of the house and climbed the stairs. If he approached this as if he were mortal, perhaps he could drift underneath Heaven's watchful eye for the duration of the visit.

_Let me do it,_ Jimmy suggested, and Castiel blinked. That was something he hadn't considered, letting his host take control. _You can hide from Heaven's eye; I won't be anything to them but another mud-monkey._

"You don't like that term." Castiel didn't like the term either. Once, he'd used it not with impunity but without second thought. Now, he had too much respect for humanity to use it again.

_But it's what I am, to them. They won't bother with me. I'm nothing to them._

"The Winchesters are mortal," Castiel felt compelled to point out. "Heaven would bother with them."

_The Winchesters are a special case, and you know it. Heaven has plans for them. They don't have any plans for me, beyond tossing you out of my body. And you know that too._

Castiel sighed. Jimmy, as usual, was arguing him down. His host had gotten too good at that lately; and to think, once he'd believed that angels had complete dominion over a consenting Vessel's body and mind. The very notion of that, now, was laughable at best. He had no further protests to Jimmy's proposed plan of action. Or, at least, no objection that Jimmy would not eventually wear down. "Very well," he said, and began to pull his essence together in a tight, compact ball. "But you will be careful."

Jimmy chuckled. _Don't be petulant, Castiel. Just sleep for a few minutes. Let me talk to Chuck and I'll wake you when we're free and clear again._

Castiel had the distinctly unsettling, disorienting sensation of stretching into infinity, passing Jimmy going the opposite way. His senses were receding, but he registered the faint, smug surprise of _huh-it-worked_, though he wasn't sure if it was his surprise or Jimmy's. Warmth spread over him, and Castiel fell into dormancy.

=0=

"I think we should give our mysterious host another few minutes to show up before we begin flinging accusations of treachery around the room," Mercury was saying, hands gesturing appeasingly at Kali. Kali glared at him and Mercury bent double suddenly, coughing blood.

Baldur sighed. "Kali…" he said.

"Who asked you?" Kali asked Mercury, or maybe Baldur.

Gabriel's grin widened. That sounded like a cue if ever he heard one. He popped to the other side of the doors, flung them open and sauntered casually into the room. "Can't we all just get along?"

He relished the looks on their faces. Kali's surprise and, if he were looking closely, lust before her expression went shuttered again. Baldur's immediate disgust. Odin's bemusement. Zao Shen's… well, who knew what Zao Shen was thinking, really?

"Loki," Baldur sneered, in the usual tone of voice that rhymed his alter ego's name with the word scum.

He smirked. Good to know some things never changed. "Baldur. Good seeing you too." _Guess my invitation got lost in the mail. _It was on the tip of his tongue to say it, but just the thought of speaking it sent a frisson of fear down his throat. The memories he'd recovered from Dean had, where this hotel was concerned, been clear and vivid. A pair of dead Gabriels vied for attention in the back of his head. One had been "killed" by a can of diet orange Slice, the other had been killed by Lucifer for real. If Gabriel were trying to freak himself out, he'd see the shadow of charred wings on the floor where his body had finally sprawled.

But he wasn't trying to freak himself out. Nuh uh.

He hopped up on a table. "Now that we're all here, we can get down to business."

The looks of shock on the faces of the pagan gods were _priceless_. Gabriel would have to remember it to laugh hysterically about later.

"_You_?" spat Baldur, half-rising from his chair. His eyes were furious, his lips twisted in a sneer. "_You _were responsible for this gathering?"

Gabriel arched an eyebrow. "Yes," he said. "But I didn't think you'd come if I signed it _Loki_. Which is why I said 'punch and pie to be served' instead. Sit down, Baldur."

"I think not," Baldur said, pushing himself up from the table and adjusting the jacket of his three-piece suit. "Whatever your scheme is, Loki, I'll have no part of it." He looked left and right at the other assembled gods, then back at Gabriel, still with that sneer firmly in place. "I will be leaving now."

"I said, sit down, Baldur." Gabriel flicked his fingers to accompany his words, shoving Baldur back into his chair with enough of a thump to send the chair screeching and scraping back a few feet. "And shut up while you're at it," he added with a sideways slash, as Baldur opened his mouth. Gabriel didn't know who looked more shocked, Baldur or the other gods, when no sound emerged from his mouth. He grinned smugly. "That's better. Now. Before we go onto business, does anyone else have any protests they'd like to raise? No? I didn't think so.

"I called you all here because the Apocalypse is coming, and once it starts, we can't stop it, gang…"


End file.
